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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28742622">Sunrise</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/ILFarseer/pseuds/ILFarseer'>ILFarseer</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Twilight Series - All Media Types, Twilight Series - Stephenie Meyer</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Romance</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-04-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 13:48:41</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>22,072</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28742622</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/ILFarseer/pseuds/ILFarseer</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>If Jacob had arrived at the cliffs in New Moon before Bella jumped and obscured Alice's vision, Bella never would have gone to Italy to save Edward. With support from Jacob, she would have embarked on a journey to create happiness for herself, a journey overshadowed by the continual threat posed by Victoria.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Jacob Black/Bella Swan</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>34</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>104</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. The Cliffs</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>"Bella."<br/>
The sound sent a lightning bolt through my chest, awakening every nerve, but it was not the voice I had expected. The hole in my chest throbbed, but far off, numbly.<br/>
Then again: “Bella? Bella, stop. Look at me.”<br/>
“Jake?” I said, and turned.<br/>
He was standing waist-deep in the bushes, and his face made my insides twist into knots. Something was very, very wrong.<br/>
“What is it?” I said.<br/>
He made a soft squeaking sound at the back of his throat. “Were you going to jump?”<br/>
I looked over my shoulder. A wave crashed against the rocks, throwing spray up. The sound had been inviting just a minute ago, reckless, heedless, joyful in its turbulence. But now I felt a weird ache in my stomach at how close to the edge I was, and stepped away from it.<br/>
“Are you stupid?” Jake said hoarsely. “Really, Bella, are you stupid? You saw how the waves are down there, and you were going to jump without me? Have you stopped caring? Do you really value your life this little?”<br/>
I heard the sounds of bushes snapping before I heard the footfalls, and the huge black wolf emerged from the underbrush beside the trail, glanced at me, and swung his huge head over to Jake.<br/>
“We’re fine. Go ahead, I’ll meet you there,” Jake said, and Sam turned, surprisingly quickly for his size and was gone.<br/>
“What happened?” I said.<br/>
“Harry Clearwater had a heart attack,” said Jake dully. “Sam’s going to help.”<br/>
“Is he going to be…”<br/>
“It doesn’t look good.”<br/>
I felt a massive wave of guilt. Now, when another wave crashed against the cliff, I cringed and stepped fully away from the edge. I hadn’t really looked at it before, but the way the water churned and the wind slapped my face with cold veils of rain… I might have drowned there, and then Charlie — god, poor Charlie — would have an even worse phone call to contend with on this gray day. And Jake would think it was his fault.<br/>
I swallowed around the painful lump that was suddenly in my throat. “Oh my god. I’m so sorry —“<br/>
“It’s fine,” Jacob lied. His face was twisted up, so upset I could barely stand to look at it. “I’m glad I saw you. I saw the truck when we came around the ridge, and I was afraid that the redhead —“<br/>
“Have you seen her?”<br/>
“We lost her scent this morning. As long as you’re here, though…” He breathed out heavily. “I’ll follow you down to the truck. Charlie will be at the hospital. You can wait with me.”<br/>
I nodded mutely, feeling tears start in my eyes.<br/>
“Go ahead,” he said, nodding to the trail, and I started down it obediently, feeling my legs move almost without my permission. A moment later, I heard the whuff of a giant creature’s breath, and glanced over my shoulder to see the vast russet wolf, walking slowly behind me. </p><p>	I drove to the Black house on autopilot. I was barely even aware of the road as it passed beneath me. I felt numb with shock, as though I really had just emerged from that cold water.<br/>
Why?<br/>
I could clearly remember the greedy, selfish emotions of my walk up the trail, and they made me sick. That was who I was now? I went to go risk my life, like it was worth nothing, over a voice from the past?<br/>
The hole in my chest ached terribly at that thought, at the concept of putting him in the past, but I was fixating on something else, something I hadn’t even known I remembered: the way that Charlie had looked when Sam carried me out of the woods, so long ago, when he had thought I was missing. The haggard expression of terror in his eyes that didn’t even abate when he was holding me, and the look of sickening fear that developed there when I could not respond to his, or anyone’s, words.<br/>
Was that the emotion that I wanted to inspire in the people I loved? In the people that loved me? Was that what I would contribute to Charlie’s life, and Renee’s, and Jacob’s?<br/>
I got out of the truck. It was misting here, not raining as heavily as it had been near the coast. Jacob was already standing by the porch, his hands in the pockets of his cutoff shorts, his eyes dark and unreadable. He did not speak as I approached.<br/>
The words that leapt immediately to my lips were I’m sorry, but I repressed them for the moment, understanding that they were the wrong thing to say, at least now.<br/>
“I was being selfish,” I said. His eyes opened slightly, surprised. “I… I was in my own head, and I wasn’t thinking, and I should have. I’m sorry.”<br/>
He watched me with those intense eyes. “Why did you do it?”<br/>
I winced. “I… needed… to feel something.”<br/>
He took two steps toward me, halving the distance between us, and I was the one who closed the gap, and he wrapped his arms around me. I laid my cheek on his chest, over his heart, and felt its familiar steady thudding.<br/>
“You can’t do that, Bella,” Jacob said softly into my hair. “You can’t risk your safety like that. It’s not fair to anyone. It’s not fair to me.”<br/>
“I won’t do it again,” I said. I meant to lie, but the words had the ring of truth. </p><p>	Jacob went to sleep, exhausted and unable to bear the prospect of waiting for Billy to return with news. I sat down in his tiny room next to him on a cramped seat, and stared out the window at the misty forest.<br/>
I kept seeing Charlie’s face behind my eyes, the flash of the expression he had had the night Sam Uley carried me out of the woods. Harry’s heart attack had pushed everything into perspective for me, sudden as cold water.<br/>
I thought about the visions. Would I chase them forever? They would fade eventually; I knew that from the motorcycle riding. When I got accustomed to the thing and it no longer felt so dangerous, the voice did not speak. I could keep looking for fresh, dangerous things for the rest of my life, chasing the momentary pleasure of reliving those memories.<br/>
I bit my lip. Part of me cringed back from the honesty of these thoughts, knowing that objectivity meant that I had to change, that there was only one right way to move forward from this: to leave it behind. To give up the hallucinations and try to make a life, as best I could, without the echoes of Edward.<br/>
My eyes burned with tears of loss; for what, I wasn’t sure. For my poor father, losing Harry? For the visions? For the tiny seed of hope that I hadn’t even dared admit to myself that I had clung to, the fragile little wish that Edward would come back?	Could I really give that up?<br/>
Jake snored softly, drawing my eyes to his face. He was so young when he was asleep, his face sweet and uncomplicated, so much like the goofy sophomore to whom I had brought the motorcycles so long ago. With a tiny, fibrous rip in my heart, I realized that I could give it up. It would be miserable, no doubt, but I could do it. If I had Jacob.<br/>
The wound in my chest throbbed terribly, and I changed topics, casting around for something else to think about, something pleasant. I stared out the window to the mist on the trees, trying to breathe slowly and deeply, and eventually felt my eyelids sag. I fell half-asleep to the sound of Jacob’s breathing.</p><p>	The sound of the front door opening awoke both of us, and I started upright, every muscle in my neck and shoulders aching from the weird position I was in.<br/>
Billy and Sam were just shutting the door behind them as they came in, and one look at their faces was all I needed to see. There were tear tracks on Billy’s cheeks, and Sam’s usual composure was gone. His face was twisted, agonized.<br/>
“Oh, Billy,” I whispered. “I’m so sorry.”<br/>
He nodded, wiping his cheek with one hand. “It’s going to be hard.” Jake hurried to his father and took his other hands, his face childlike with grief.<br/>
“Where’s Charlie?”<br/>
“Still at the hospital with Sue. There’s… arrangements to be made.”	I swallowed.<br/>
“I’ve got to go back,” Sam mumbled, and ducked out the door.<br/>
Billy rolled slowly back to his bedroom. Jake sank onto the couch, head in his hands, and I sat down next to him and rubbed his shoulders, feeling more helpless than I had felt in a long time.<br/>
“I’ll take you home,” he said softly after a long while. His eyes were red and a tear traced his cheek, but he didn’t seem to notice.<br/>
“Okay,” I whispered, and we went out to the truck. I looked out into the woods, barely seeing them. I had suddenly gone numb to the hole in my chest. There was a hard lump in my throat, but it barely hurt. I felt alive and hyperfocused, like I was at the edge of a precipice, walking somewhere high up to some very important destination.<br/>
I had wished once that Jacob was my brother, but our relationship wasn’t brotherly at all. I realized that now. I just needed him. He was essential to my survival. He was comforting and familiar. I had been alive in the before times, in those hideous gray four months, but I had not been awake. He had awoken me, and he had made me stronger.<br/>
And yet it was wrong, wasn’t it? Wasn’t the love I had for him not comparable to the love I had had before? I would have to tell him. I would have to be honest. I would have to lay it all out. He needed to know that he was taking on damaged goods.<br/>
Would it be so wrong, to selfishly cling to my own personal sun? When I knew, even in all of my rationalizing, that he would choose me without hesitation, that he would take me in spite of it all?<br/>
Jacob turned off the engine and turned to me, his eyes on mine, and I got the strange and novel feeling that he knew exactly what I had been thinking. He wrapped his arm around me, pulling me tight against his side, and I sighed in relief without thinking, to be held together so completely.<br/>
“I’m just glad you’re okay,” he whispered into my hair. “What happened with Harry… I couldn’t stand to be away from you. Not even for a second.”<br/>
Tears blurred my eyes helplessly.<br/>
“I was thinking about those couple of weeks after I joined the pack,” he said softly, still speaking into my hair. “How I didn’t tell you what was going on, how it took me so long to control myself before I could come and see you… I’m so sorry, Bella. I broke that promise once. I’ll never break it again. I’ll never leave you alone like that again.”<br/>
In a strange flash of insight, insight so obvious that it was blinding, like the sun breaking over the horizon, I realized the difference between the two of them, Edward and Jacob. Edward had thought that he knew better than I did what would make me happy, and he didn’t stop to listen to me when I told him otherwise. And Jacob, on the other hand, listened to what I had told him. He minded the boundaries I had set for him obediently, respectfully, even when I pushed him away from parts of me that I was leaving for someone who had left me already.<br/>
Jacob would not leave me.<br/>
The hole in my chest throbbed agonizingly just at the thought of what I was considering, but I ignored it.<br/>
“When we were apart,” he murmured, “I would run around your house at night, just to make sure you were safe… I spent so much time lying out there looking at your window, wanting to hold onto my shape just long enough to tell you how much I missed you.”<br/>
I felt a sob twist my throat, a sob of some emotion I could not have named if I tried, and I moved my head just enough to kiss the smooth bare skin of his shoulder, feverishly warm against my lips.<br/>
He stayed perfectly still, not daring to move until I tilted my head back and pressed my lips gently, hesitantly against his, and his mouth gave softly and warmly beneath mine in a way I had never before experienced. An unexpected rush of heat suffused my chest, and I closed my eyes, letting the feeling wash over me.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. The Vampire</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Charlie and Billy arrange a funeral. Victoria's continued attempts to reach Bella increases the stress on the wolf pack.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The days that followed were layered. Charlie’s grief overshadowed it, and the grief of the community in La Push. I stood between Charlie and Jacob at the funeral, my left hand on my dad’s arm and my right hand clutching Jacob’s. I sat at the kitchen table while Charlie made calls, and watched the game with him, understanding that my dad just needed someone nearby.</p>
<p>	 Jacob was running patrols all the time, still burning the candle at both ends as Sam pushed the pack hard. They didn’t see Victoria, but a fresh trail would crop up occasionally, and they would run for hours in search of her, but every time they returned exhausted, with no luck.</p>
<p>	When Jake wasn’t running, he was with me. Charlie and I spent much of our free time in La Push with Billy, keeping him company, and when Jake wasn’t running he was asleep or by my side. I started doing my homework in his room while he slept, or on the floor of the living room while he snored lightly on the couch. When he was awake, we wandered on the beach in our favorite spot, stopping to sit on the driftwood to kiss, or snuggled on one of our couches. </p>
<p>	There was sadness in those weeks, but it was layered over unfiltered happiness. I had expected to feel guilty, like I was holding back from Jacob, but I did not. I missed him every moment he was out running, and when I was near him, awake or asleep, I felt my heartbeat slow and my soul quiet. Being near him had always been joyful, but being with him was a new level. </p>
<p>	We were curled up on my couch, half watching a movie, a week after the funeral. Charlie was fishing, so we were alone in the house. The movie, something romantic on cable, was good but I hadn’t been paying attention for twenty minutes. I was lying pressed against Jacob’s chest, warm and cozy underneath a blanket, and we were kissing deeply, my arm around his neck, his big hands stroking my lower back gently. Being with Jacob was so different from my previous experience — my chest throbbed — that it felt brand new and unprecedented. He never drew back from my affections, and he was not careful with me, and I never had to be careful with him. We could be as greedy as we wanted. </p>
<p>	He pulled slightly away from me and kissed my nose, then leaned his forehead against mine, smiling. “Did the brother get with the girl from the ice cream shop?”</p>
<p>	I twisted to see the TV and giggled. “I have no idea.”</p>
<p>	“I love watching movies with you,” he said, kissing my nose again and squeezing me tight. I snuggled my face into the front of his T-shirt and sighed contentedly. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>	Billy called the next morning to tell me that the pack had picked up a fresh trail early that morning. </p>
<p>	“Where was she headed?” I whispered, acutely consicious of Charlie in the bathroom upstairs.</p>
<p>	“Jared said she was way out in the forest,” Billy said gently. “Don’t worry. They know what they’re doing. Jake said to call and tell you why he won’t be over today. He also said to come here if it makes you feel better.”</p>
<p>	“Thanks,” I sighed. “Do you want to talk to Charlie?”	</p>
<p>“Sure,” Billy said. “Don’t worry.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>I got through some of my homework, which I had previous been happily ignoring, and then found myself staring out of the window, completely lost in thought. There was no snow on the trees anymore; the forest was beginning to bud. I missed the lush green that usually filled every space; in this in between phase the ground seemed naked, and the tall trunks too far apart. </p>
<p>	I felt antsy, stressed. I realized how much I hated sitting at home, waiting to hear whether Jacob and the others were safe. Why was it my fate to sit around like a vulnerable treat, waiting for someone else to resolve the threat?</p>
<p>	I picked up the phone and Charlie poked his head in the room.</p>
<p>	“Hey,” I said distractedly.</p>
<p>	“Hey,” he said easily. “I’m going over to Billy’s. What are you up to?”</p>
<p>	“Jake’s busy,” I said, “so I was doing homework, but I was thinking about going somewhere else, getting out of the house…”</p>
<p>	“No hiking,” said Charlie immediately, and another frown of worry creased his face. “They found two more dead hikers yesterday. Stay in town.”</p>
<p>	“Not hiking,” I agreed, wincing. “Maybe I’ll call Angela, or…”</p>
<p>	“You should,” Charlie agreed immediately. “Gotta spend more time with your friends.”</p>
<p>	I scowled at his back as he ducked out of the room, but I dialed Emily instead of Angela. </p>
<p>	“Please come over,” she said the minute I answered. “Kim’s here, too. We’re digging garden beds to take our minds off it.”</p>
<p>	I threw my backpack into my truck in case I felt virtuous later, and I was at Emily’s half an hour later. She was outside in the front with Kim, wearing heavy gloves, her hair in a straggly braid. Kim was sweet-looking, with wide-spaced eyes and wispy hair and a pleasant smile. She looked slight, but she handled the ice chopper she was using to break up the ground with surprising strength.</p>
<p>	“So we need a trench that forms a rectangle about eighteen feet long and six feet wide,” Emily explained after making the introductions. “I’m thinking about eight inches deep.” She eyed a stack of railroad ties critically. “I want to plant a big garden this year.”</p>
<p>	“Put me to work,” I said. </p>
<p>	I was given the task of squaring the corners with a hand trowel, while Kim and Emily hacked at the ground. The physical work was soothing, much better at distracting me than my homework had been, and by the time we switched spots I already felt better.</p>
<p>	“I wish I could turn into a giant wolf,” Emily puffed, taking her turn with the ice chopper. I had a long spade, and was shoveling the sod she broke out of the way. “I could dig this trench in five minutes.”</p>
<p>	I smiled; I had been thinking much the same. “Me too. Would be nice not to be the bait.”</p>
<p>	I had said it somewhat lightheartedly, but the moment it exited my mouth I realized how that sounded, with the loves of their lives out fighting a sadistic vampire to protect me.</p>
<p>	“I’m sorry,” I said, thick-tongued. “I didn’t mean… I feel so terrible about this.”</p>
<p>	“It’s not you,” said Emily. “This particular one, maybe, but she would be elsewhere harming other people anyway, and she’s dangerous to all of us. The pack protects everyone.”</p>
<p>	I saw Kim frown as she levered a rock out of the bottom of the trench. “What do you mean, the bait?”</p>
<p>	I felt tongue-tied, suddenly. </p>
<p>	“The… the vampires that used to live here, I was— was dating one of them,” I mumbled. The hole in my chest flared in pain. The word dating felt insufficient. “Three others came through, not nice ones, bad vampires… One of them decided that he wanted to hunt me. Like a sport.”</p>
<p>	“He did?” Kim said. “How did you survive that, then?” She had put down her trowel; Emily was also paying close attention.</p>
<p>	“The vampire I was with killed him,” I said. “I had to run from him to Phoenix, the bad one, but he followed me there.”</p>
<p>	For a second, I debated it, then I pulled up my sleeve and showed them the faint outline of James’ teeth, cool and slightly raised on my forearm. There was a dam breaking inside of me somewhere. I hadn’t realized how much I had wanted to vocalize these things, to allow them to exist outside of my own head. I had told Jacob a lot, of course, but in many ways he was a world away from me: he was powerful, supernatural, a protector. These two girls were more like me than anyone else I had ever met. We were the bridge between the magic and the mundane, and we understood the struggle of living in the middle.</p>
<p>	“Is that —?” Emily breathed, shocked. She ran her own scarred hand over my forearm, then clutched it, as though verifying that my skin was still warm. “Then shouldn’t you be—?”</p>
<p>	“Edward stopped it,” I said, surprising myself by saying his name. “He sucked the venom out. Like a rattlesnake bite.”</p>
<p>	There was a beat of stunned silence, then Kim said, “You’re actually not supposed to suck the venom out of a rattlesnake bite.”</p>
<p>	We all looked at each other, surprised, and then laughed out loud. I was almost shocked at hearing the sound come out of my chest, but how particularly sweet it was to be standing here amid the dirt heaps, laughing at a joke that no one but us would understand. </p>
<p>	We finished the first trench and took a break around noon for a sandwich and a cup of coffee, which we ate outside on the driftwood logs that Sam and Emily used as patio furniture. We talked pleasantly, aimlessly, and I learned that Kim loved classic literature as much as I did, and that Emily was thinking about going to college to be a math teacher. </p>
<p>	“The calc teacher at my old high school is the worst,” she confided. “I wanted to jump out the window the entire time.”</p>
<p>	“Does Sam knows what he wants to do?” I asked. </p>
<p>	“Not yet,” she replied. “Have you thought about it at all?”</p>
<p>	“No,” I said with complete honesty. Up until last September, my life plan had involved vampire venom and a complete lack of concern about money. At least I had mostly dodged continuous questions about what I was going to do with my life from relatives. “I love English, like I said, so I might end up being a teacher, or working in publishing or something.”</p>
<p>	“That’d be cool,” Kim agreed, lying back on the log. </p>
<p>	The wolf pack emerged from the trees in the late afternoon, when we were on the last trench and already playing with the idea of dinner. All of us dropped our tools and went to go meet them as they trailed out from the trees, barefoot and exhausted-looking in their cutoff shorts. </p>
<p>	“I sent Quil and the others home to sleep,” Sam said bleakly after kissing Emily hello. “They need it, or they’re going to start collapsing.”</p>
<p>	I clung to Jacob but didn’t kiss him, feeling suddenly small under everyone’s glances; he understood, wrapping an arm around me. The bags under his eyes were deeper. </p>
<p>	“Got anything to eat, Emily?” Embry said hopefully. </p>
<p>	The boys collapsed on the couches inside while Emily and Kim dug through the cupboards and I put the kettle on. Jake was already nodding off when Kim put a bag of popcorn in his hand and I put a mug of tea in the other. For several minutes, the only sound was snacks crunching.</p>
<p>	“So what happened?” Emily said quietly.</p>
<p>	“We saw her, at least,” said Sam tonelessly. “We chased her into a blind canyon.”</p>
<p>	“A blind canyon?” Kim said.</p>
<p>	“A canyon with one end blocked off,” said Jared. “We used to hunt large animals that way.” (I understood that we meant the tribe). “Sam sent Jacob and I up to cover the top of the canyon, so she couldn’t escape by climbing up, but she got away before we could reach it.”</p>
<p>	“They climb faster than we do,” Sam confirmed. “Up cliffs and trees. We had to double around to follow her, and we didn’t catch up before she hit the water. She swims much better than we do.”</p>
<p>	I had never seen a vampire swim, now that I thought about it. </p>
<p>	“Aren’t they slower in the water?”</p>
<p>	“No. I mean, they’re slower than they are in the air, but so are we. And we need to breathe,” said Jacob. I leaned my head against his chest and heard his heart thudding steadily. It was the most soothing sound in my life now; I could have picked it out of any noise. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>	I had a nightmare that night, for the first time in a while; when I thought about it, I hadn’t had any dreams, or hadn’t remembered them, since the cliffs. </p>
<p>	The nightmare didn’t follow the usual script. I was above the forest, looking down on the pack of wolves as they ran. It wasn’t as though I was flying; it was like I was peering through a camera on a cable, swooping over the trees as the wolves ran. </p>
<p>	In the front was Sam, vast and night-black, with Paul and Jared flanking him, and on the left Jacob, huge and russet-red. They moved as fast as vampires, their huge feet covering fifteen feet with each step, and they divided and flowed around the trees and logs in their way, perfectly coordinated, as liquid and fast as quicksilver.</p>
<p>	Ahead of them flashed the orange hair, bright as flame. As fast as the wolves were, Victoria was just a second faster. As I watched, I saw why: she was deliberately choosing the most dangerous terrain, leaping from tree to tree when the ground was so broken it was hard to move over. The wolves ran faster, but they couldn’t traverse above the ground, and the dangerous footing slowed them down. </p>
<p>	Victoria turned abruptly, and raced out onto the open cliffs, where I had stood only a few weeks before, and the wolves came blazing out behind her, running at full speed, about to overtake her.</p>
<p>	I saw what she was trying to do, and screamed: Nooo!</p>
<p>	The wolves realized it too, and slammed hard on the brakes, but for several of them it was too late. Victoria leaped, her body arcing into the sky, and flew for so long that it seemed she could ignore gravity, then fell in a long curve and struck the churning waves with barely a splash. And my Jacob, the vast russet wolf with the powerful shoulders, could not stop in time. He fell straight down into the water, and struck with a world-ending splash. Two more wolves fell too, but I didn’t care.</p>
<p>	Now my perspective shifted, and I was underwater, watching through blurry eyes. Jake was thrashing noiselessly, his huge paws kicking against nothing, trying to drag himself back up to the surface, and from the depths of the water came a terrifying specter with clouds of orange hair. </p>
<p>	I screamed, but in the dream it made no sound. </p>
<p>	Victoria grabbed his neck in her arms, clamping it with iron force, and kicked downwards, dragging my thrashing love into darkness.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Collateral Damage</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>The continuing threat of Victoria has Bella making plans with the wolf pack.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>I awoke in the middle of my scream, and Charlie shoved open the door an instant after.</p>
<p>	“Bella! Bella!”</p>
<p>	He clutched me as I tried to find my breath, to calm myself, but I was grasping for my phone, silently begging any and everything for it to have just been a dream, for Jacob to be alive. I was halfway through Jake’s number when I realized that Charlie was asking me over and over what was wrong.</p>
<p>	“Dreamed Jake got hurt,” I said hoarsely as the phone rang. “I’m sorry I woke you up — I’m sorry, I got so scared…”</p>
<p>	“You haven’t had a nightmare in so long!” said Charlie. </p>
<p>	“I’m okay, I’m —“</p>
<p>	“Hello?” said Jacob’s muffled, sleepy, half-awake voice from the phone, and I nearly burst into tears. </p>
<p>	“I’m sorry,” I sniffled. “I dreamed you got hurt, and it scared me.”</p>
<p>	“Bella?” he said, now sounding much more awake. “I’ll come over.”</p>
<p>	“No, it’s okay,” I said. It was early morning; the clock said six am, and the light was calming me down. Jacob was okay. Everything was okay. “I’m fine. Keep sleeping. I’ll see you later.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>	I slept for two more hours — dreamlessly, thankfully — and woke up to a message from Jacob telling me that he was out on patrol again. </p>
<p>	His presence had kept my fear of Victoria at bay for a while — his presence and the unexpected, many-layered joy of being with him. Now, though, as I trudged through the last of my homework and sat down on the couch with a book, it was impossible to stop thinking of the dream I had had. I told myself at least twenty times a day that the wolves were impossibly fast and strong. There were so many of them, too: they had killed Laurent effortlessly. It was hard to imagine anyone ever being strong enough to defeat them in a group, but Victoria continued to evade them, playing ghost, at the very edge of their abilities. Eventually, as we all knew, she would find a hole in their defenses, and someone would be killed. Possibly me, but it could also be someone else. One of the pack or, even worse, someone innocent. Collateral damage. </p>
<p>	I thought about calling Emily again, but I couldn’t bear the thought of looking her in the eye, knowing that the person she loved the most in the world was out risking his life to stop a sadistic vampire that was menacing his world because of me. Neither could I face Kim.</p>
<p>	In my mind’s eye I saw Jacob falling, twisting through the air, and then dragged deep underwater, trailing silver bubbles as he gave up his air. </p>
<p>	My breathing started to speed up. No, no, no. The hole in my chest ached agonizingly. Jacob could not die. Without him, I was sure I would cease to exist. I needed to know how this would end. I couldn’t bear the waiting, the uncertainty, the constant worry, the constant fear. I wished I knew the future. I wished that Alice —</p>
<p>	I cut that thought off before it could finish. </p>
<p>	Victoria had some sixth sense. That was what had been lurking at the back of my mind. She was always a step ahead, she had some lucky edge that always let her get away at the last moment. She had been playing this game with the Quileutes for weeks now, banking on them slipping up and making a mistake eventually, and she had yet to succeed, but all of us knew it would happen eventually. </p>
<p>	I gazed out the back window, the book completely forgotten in my hands. It seemed easy enough, when you put it that way, to conclude that what needed to happen was to put the wolves on the offense. They needed to set up a situation so tempting that Victoria would take the chance, risk it even though she wouldn’t normally. </p>
<p>	She was driven by her passion, right? She was clearly smart, a good planner, an efficient enemy, but she was doing all of this because she wanted to kill me so desperately she was willing to risk her life. One misstep on her part would be the end of her. She would be having the same thoughts as we were: she could not afford one single mistake. The pack could take losses, theoretically; after all, the pack of Jacob’s great-grandfather had comprised three wolves. She would be feeling the pressure of time, too. Even if she killed one wolf, there would still be five to take its place. </p>
<p>	In fact, from that perspective, she was more desperate than the wolves. </p>
<p>	I texted Jacob to call me the minute he was done, and walked a lap around the kitchen, thinking hard. </p>
<p>	How did you set a trap for a creature with superhuman hearing and smell and sight? </p>
<p>	I forced myself to remember what I had learned with the Cullens. The pain in my chest made me sink to the floor, clutching my ribs to hold myself together, but I weathered it, thinking as hard as I could. I needed to save Jacob. I needed to save the wolves. I needed to save myself.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>	I made the case to Jacob that night. He hadn’t bothered to call me, had just run right over as soon as his shift was over. I explained it to him as I made dinner. He sat at the table and tore through a bag of popcorn as I talked. </p>
<p>	When I was done, he said, “I don’t like it.”</p>
<p>	I exhaled, feeling vaguely surprised. It took a minute to pinpoint why: Edward would have simply said no. Absolutely not. My chest ached stabbingly, and I shoved down those particular feelings, wondering why I had been thinking his name so often recently. </p>
<p>	“I know,” I said, “but if it works, we’ll deal with Victoria, and everyone will be safe. Forks, La Push, you, me, Charlie, the pack.”</p>
<p>	He mulled it over, working his jaw mutely, then nodded. “Yeah. But I have to be with you.”</p>
<p>	Even though I had expected it, I hesitated. It was the most dangerous spot for him to be, but (of course) it was more dangerous for me. The smart thing to do, the fair thing to do, was to say yes, but even so the word dragged on my tongue, and I was very tempted to say —</p>
<p>	“I don’t like it.” A half smile lit Jake’s face. “But yeah. It makes sense.”	He got up and crossed the distance between us with one step, crushed me in a hug and kissed me feverishly. I dropped the spoon I had been using to stir the pasta sauce on the floor and kissed him back with every ounce of fierceness I possessed. My ribs ached with the force of his embrace, but I couldn’t have cared less. I reveled in the strength of his arms, in the way he didn’t need to hold back. </p>
<p>	It was a long time before we broke apart, and he kissed me on the forehead. “I can go phase and tell the others,” he said. “Sam will want to know soon.”</p>
<p>	“Tell them after dinner,” I suggested. “You need some food and some rest.”</p>
<p>	He crashed on the couch for a brief nap while I finished cooking, and he was there when Charlie opened the door. Charlie didn’t even blink — he was used to finding Jake asleep on random surfaces in the house.</p>
<p>	“What’s for dinner?” he asked me. <br/>	“Pasta and porcini cream sauce,” I said, readying the colander. “Jake and I found the mushrooms yesterday.”</p>
<p>	“Smells amazing,” he said, and gave me a curious sideways glance that I had never seen before from Charlie.</p>
<p>	“What is it?” I said when I couldn’t ignore it any longer.</p>
<p>	“Are you and Jacob…” His voice dwindled off into suggestive nothingness.</p>
<p>	My face grew burningly hot, and my mouth worked for a second. “Uhhhh… we’re…” Part of me wanted to say the word together, the other part of me shied away from that, the wound in my chest still aching, still holding me back from saying it out loud and making it true.</p>
<p>	“Okay,” said Charlie skeptically. He was holding back a grin. “Yeah, okay.”</p>
<p>	He slouched out of the room, and I caught my reflection in the microwave and realized that there was a purple hickey the size of my thumb on my neck. </p>
<p>	“God dammit!” I hissed to myself, and slopped the pasta into the colander. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>	Jacob laughed for five minutes straight when he woke up and I told him, and I ran upstairs for a hoodie that would cover it. Dinner was weird: both of them were holding back grins, and I stared out the window and did my best to haughtily ignore them, although there was a few times that I caught Jacob’s eye and had to hold back giggles.</p>
<p>	After Jake and I had finished cleaning up dinner, we went outside and walked a few hundred feet into the woods. </p>
<p>	“Can I watch?” I blurted, not wanting to be relegated to the waiting-at-home role I had been so accustomed to previously.</p>
<p>	Jake shot me a playful look, wiggling his eyebrows. “That eager to see me naked?”</p>
<p>	I blushed scarlet. “Of course not. That has nothing to do with it.”</p>
<p>	He considered. “Sure, but go back there across the clearing, okay? And don’t come close until I tell you to.”</p>
<p>	I nodded, feeling strangely eager, and took his shirt and pants and shoes from him before I retreated across the clearing and sat on a dryish stump. He went halfway into the bushes before bending over to strip off his underwear and straightening up, closing his eyes in concentration.</p>
<p>	I paused in folding his pants and looked at him. The evening, sunset light was falling over the forest, and the soft rays that pierced the foliage fell around him, bathing his smooth reddish brown skin in golden light. His hair had gotten shaggier since the initial cut, deep and shiny black. The muscles in his torso were long and strong, and even standing still, at peace, he was poised and powerful, a moment from springing into action.</p>
<p>	I felt tears prick at my eyes from the intensity of the feeling that welled up in me. He was glorious, and he was mine. </p>
<p>	A second later I saw his body expand. It happened so fast that my eyes couldn’t track it — I had the momentary impression of something blowing out, expanding like a parachute in a tornado — and then the bushes settled with an almighty crunch under the weight of the huge russet wolf, bigger than a horse. He stood totally still, his eyes closed for a moment, then opened them and stepped slowly out of the bushes, coming to the middle of the clearing. I paused, setting his clothes down and waited until he met my eyes and whined softly, then stretched into a perfect downward facing dog and settled down into a crouch. </p>
<p>	“Down,” I teased him aloud. “Good boy.” </p>
<p>	He made a whining, barking noise that I clearly understood to be a laugh, and I half-stood, asking silently if it was all right to approach. He blinked at me, which I took for a yes, and I hesitantly approached and sat down next to him. He rested his huge head on his paws, eyes fixed off in the distance, and I knew that he was communicating with the pack.</p>
<p>	I reached out and stroked the top of his vast head. It was as long as my torso and probably heavier, and his fur was thick and heavy, dark red from a distance but a million different shades up close: gray, black, whitish, tan, red, roan.</p>
<p>	I ran my hand over his head, from the ridges above his deepest brown eyes to thick fur around his huge, perked ears. His body was so warm that I could feel his body heat from a foot away. The ground was cool and damp, and when Jake felt me shiver he rolled onto his side so that I could lean against him. I stroked his shoulder and heard the steady, thudding pulse of his heart.</p>
<p>	After about fifteen minutes, he lifted his head and I stood up. Jake trotted off into the forest and returned a minute later, snagging his underwear on the way.</p>
<p>	“What’d they say?” I asked, trying to rip my eyes away from his bare legs and muscled back as he dressed. </p>
<p>	He shook his head slightly. His face seemed to be split between eagerness and concern. “They think it’s a good idea. Actually, Sam and Jared and Embry think it’s a bad idea, and everyone else is absolutely set on it. Sam will bend, though, because he’s close to his breaking point on this. It’s been almost two months. We can’t keep this up forever.”</p>
<p>	“When?” I asked. My heartbeat accelerated; this was really going to happen. </p>
<p>	“Next weekend,” he said. “We’ll tell your dad that we’re going camping down on the beach in La Push, with a bunch of people. Billy will help cover for us.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>	The plan centered on a tiny island just three hundred yards from shore. It was well inside the Quileute boundary, and the wolves had run it many, many times. The island was mostly forested, but a key section of it jutted out into the water, a long gravel bar with a few strips of sand to pitch a tent. From the shore, the gravel bar was exactly parallel, every person and movement on it clearly visible. </p>
<p>	Jake and I would be on the island, and the remaining wolves would be split into three groups, one running their usual patrols far to the east and one on the shore, straight across from us. Victoria would be banking on the wolves with their slow swimming speed, but those wolves would be in human form, waiting in a speedboat. The last group would be hidden in the forest on the island, in the very middle, and would arrive two days in advance to eliminate fresh scent trails.</p>
<p>	The plan was thrashed out at Emily and Sam’s house, and halfway through the deliberations, Emily spoke up with what I had started to think: “This is a terrible idea. Do you hear yourselves? What makes you think that the bloodsucker will take the bait?”</p>
<p>	“She has a sense for her odds,” Sam said in his deliberate way. “She’ll know that she has a better chance of killing Bella than she’s had before with half of us running the decoy run, and she’ll try for her then. We just need her to be distracted.”</p>
<p>	“If it doesn’t work then it’s just one wasted weekend,” I said. “And no one in La Push or Forks will have been endangered. I think it’s worth it.”</p>
<p>	The door swung open and Leah and Seth Clearwater came in. I blinked in surprise at Leah: last time I had seen her, her hair had been long. Now it was cropped to her chin and she was wearing a battered t-shirt and jean shorts, much like her brother.</p>
<p>	“Decide on what we’re doing yet?” she said coldly, her eyes sweeping over Sam and Emily  like they didn’t exist.</p>
<p>	“We’re going to do it,” Quil said, clearly itching for a fight.</p>
<p>	“Sweet!” gasped Seth Clearwater.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>	“Leah said we,” I noted to Jake that night, as we headed home.</p>
<p>	Jake frowned. “Sam doesn’t really want us to talk about that, but… yeah. She’s part of the pack.”</p>
<p>	I was silent a moment, letting that sink in. “I thought…”</p>
<p>	“So did we,” Jake agreed. “All the stories say that only sons were wolves, but she has the genes, I guess. Everyone was surprised, even Dad and Old Quil.”	</p>
<p>I chewed my thumbnail, thinking about Seth’s face. He was so young that it was ridiculous; he looked barely old enough to be in high school. “Please tell me Seth will be running the decoy one.”</p>
<p>“No,” Jake said. “He’ll be one of the force on the island with us. Him and Embry, Sam’s thinking.”	</p>
<p>“Why?” I moaned.</p>
<p>“If we want to lure her, it needs to actually make sense for her to come,” Jake said. </p>
<p>	It had been my idea from the beginning, but I still put my head in my hands and found myself struggling to breathe.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. The Island</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>On the island, Jacob and Bella attempt to bait Victoria into making a dangerous move.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Jake and I crossed to the island on Friday afternoon, just after school ended. I had made the proper arrangements with Charlie, assuring him over and over again that we would be on the beach in La Push with a bunch of other kids from the rez. He finally agreed to let me go, still looking worried, and it was strange to know that I knew the threat stalking the people of western Washington a million times better than my father ever would. </p>
<p>	We had just a small sack of camping equipment, and I tied it to my back on the edge of the water while Jake phased. We had driven up the coast, an hour or more, and parked at a little all-night spot. </p>
<p>	He crouched when he was done, after I had finished stuffing his clothing into the bag, and I climbed carefully onto his back. I clutched his heavy ruff with both hands, already shivering with bare legs, and repressed a shriek when he stood up. His shoulder blades undulated under me as he walked, but it wasn’t difficult to adjust to the stride, once I got used to being so far off the ground.</p>
<p>	He walked slowly into the water, and I winced as it sloshed up my legs. We walked a surprisingly long way before he lunged forward and settled into a fast doggy paddle. Even restricted by the water, Jacob could swim much faster than any human or wolf, and we reached the shore in under a minute. Jake crouched again on the gravel bar and I stepped off his back, wincing as my numb feet hit the ground. </p>
<p>	The next few hours were strangely pleasant. Every part of my body was conscious of the threat of Victoria, and I jerked at every noise, every movement. But setting up camp was a happy memory: I found myself remembering the time I had spent in Forks during the summers of my childhood, playing with Jacob and his sisters. Charlie had taken us all camping a few times. I was put in charge of the firepit, and pulled over enough driftwood to make a fire I could feel five feet away. By the time it was burning well, Jake had set up the tent and stacked up driftwood to make a counter. </p>
<p>	For once, there was beams of sunlight shining down, and we took the opportunity to lie down on a strip of fine pebbles that retained the sun like a heated blanket. I closed my eyes, the side of my body pressed against Jake’s, and savored the warmth, both from him and from the ground. The air that blew in off the water was cold on my back.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>	There was no sign of her that night. Jake and I ate. Either Seth or Embry was phased at all times in the depths of the island, so they would come straight to us if the others scented her arrival on shore, or if they did. </p>
<p>I had been to the beach dozens of times in the time Victoria had been hunting me, so it was almost stupid to be as afraid as I felt, but every ripple in the water seemed to hide her hair, and every movement in my periphery made me jerk. </p>
<p>“Breathe,” Jake reminded me quietly, kissing the top of my head. We were done with our dinner of fried rice, our plates off to the side. I was lying half on Jake’s torso, my head resting on his chest. The sun was beginning to set in a glorious riot of rose and gold, and the light was hazy and soft.</p>
<p>“What are you thinking about?” he asked.</p>
<p>“I’m thinking that Charlie made a big deal of making sure we packed two tents,” I said. “And I’m only seeing one set up.”</p>
<p>His throaty laughter shook us both. “Strictly for security, I promise.”</p>
<p>“Uh huh,” I said, making us laugh again.</p>
<p>I picked up his big hand and studied it, winding my fingers through his. There was a whitish scar on the side of his index finger. </p>
<p>	“What’s that from?”</p>
<p>	“A can of beans when I was twelve,” he said.</p>
<p>	I giggled. “Terrifying.”	He kissed the top of my head and wrapped his arms fully around me. “I’d fight a million cans for you.”</p>
<p>	“Awww.” I stared out at the sunset. The flakes of golden light that reflected off the waves were playing tricks on my eyes. I felt my body tense.</p>
<p>	“She’s not out there,” Jake murmured. “I’d smell her.”</p>
<p>	I nodded and swallowed, then after a minute asked, “What are you thinking?”</p>
<p>	“Whether this qualifies as our first date.”</p>
<p>	I thought hard. “I thought taking the motorcycles out was our first date.”	“Yeah, but you went to the hospital.”</p>
<p>	“I go to the hospital all the time. </p>
<p>	“True.” He kissed the back of my neck, sending shivers down my spine. “So let’s say that those were all unofficial dates. After we’ve dealt <br/>with the redhead, we’ll do something really fun. Something first date worthy.”</p>
<p>	I gazed at the sunset. In Jacob’s arms, I couldn’t feel the night chill at all. “This is pretty amazing,” I admitted. “Does anyone else ever come <br/>out here to camp?”</p>
<p>	“It’s not allowed, but yeah,” he said. “Sometimes.”</p>
<p>	“Let’s go somewhere like this, then,” I said. “Someplace cozy.”</p>
<p>	“Perfect,” he said. “It’s a date.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>	We slept late the next morning. I slept with my cheek resting on Jake’s shoulder, his arm wrapped around me, and I woke up roastingly hot. I wiggled free of the sleeping bag and poked my head out of the tent to find that — of course— it was drizzling rain. </p>
<p>	“I feel like a new person,” Jake sighed when he came out, shrugging into his rain jacket. “God, sleep really is good for you. What are we doing this morning?”</p>
<p>	We walked along the edge of the water, picking through the jewellike stones. When the mist soaked through, we went back to the tent and lay side by side in our sleeping bags with the front open so we could watch the water. I had brought a stack of books. As beautiful as the landscape was, and as cozy as the scene — one hand around a cup of tea, my head resting on Jake’s arm — I couldn’t fully relax. I kept glancing up at every imagined noise. </p>
<p>	We went for another long walk before dinner and then curled up in our sleeping bags ridiculously early, face to face. Jake’s eyes were closed, and I gazed at every part of his face in detail: the curve of his lips, the way his long dark eyelashes cast slight shadows on his cheeks. There were three tiny moles along his jaw, like a constellation. His reddish-brown skin had a greenish cast from the shade of the tent. </p>
<p>	Staring at his face, I felt something both curious and magnificent happen inside me: an opening up, as though a long-buried trapdoor had been slowly levered open. A rush of heat suffused my face, and I found myself fixating on his lips again, remembering vividly the taste of his mouth. </p>
<p>	“Jacob?” I said in a strained voice, unable to convey the emotion I felt, and when he opened his eyes I kissed him. </p>
<p>	We had kissed before; we were no strangers to one another anymore, and yet when our lips met it felt unlike anything I had ever experienced. I felt the kiss in three dimensions: the touch that was happening now, that was alighting my senses, the moments we had shared in the past (on the couch before our fathers were home, lying on our beds with homework forgotten, in the car taking one of us home) and an anticipation so powerful that I felt it all over my body. My hand was on the zipper of Jacob’s sleeping bag, and then it was inside the bag, sliding under the hem of his T-shirt and feeling the way his muscles rippled under his silky skin— </p>
<p>	“This okay?” Jacob whispered hoarsely, his hand on the zipper of mine, and I gasped out my yes in the second before my lips touched his again. </p>
<p>	He undid the bag and ran his hand over my side, over the curve of my waist and over the soft flesh of my stomach. I pressed my body against his, chest to chest, and wrapped one leg around his waist. His hands were under my shirt against my bare back, crushing me against his body with all of his prodigious strength, and yet it was not close enough for me. I clutched at his hair with my hands, held him to me like a drowning woman to life, and it was almost enough to temper the overwhelming need that I felt for him. </p>
<p>	“Jacob,” I breathed when we drew apart. </p>
<p>	“Bella,” he whispered, and kissed me.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>	I awoke in Jacob’s arms again, my shirt pushed up around my ribs from the nights’ feverishness, and smiled dopily at his sleeping face. </p>
<p>	Victoria may as well not have existed that day. We ate, we wandered, we napped, we kissed and read and simply looked at one another. I felt as though I was floating in an invisible cocoon, a force field of adoration and protection that could not be seen, only sensed, and never broken.</p>
<p>	It was around six o’ clock when we concluded that the experiment had failed and packed up our things. Jake transformed by the water and I climbed onto his back, thinking of nothing at all, only a sense of peace that I had almost forgotten existed. Deep-down, unflappable contentment. He rose to his full height, which I had found so frightening before, and I merely smiled. I was sitting on the back of a living legend, a creature of myth and tradition and power as old as time.</p>
<p>	As soon as Jake transformed, Seth and Embry knew that we were giving up: I saw them emerge from the trees on the far side of the shore with their gear in packs on their back. The wolves on the shore were getting into their boat to come pick them up. </p>
<p>	Jake launched into the water and started swimming strongly. I hissed aloud as the icy current washed against my bare legs, and he made an amused noise in return. </p>
<p>	He went from swimming to wading as the water grew shallow, and I glanced over my shoulder to see that Seth and Embry were tossing their bags into the boat on the island. The glance was fast, but even to my weak eyes something registered as strange, as not right. I was already starting to turn back when the voice spoke, the voice of velvet that made even deathly fear into beauty.</p>
<p>	“Run!” cried Edward.</p>
<p>	The sound of the voice, forgotten for so long, might have paralyzed me once, but somehow my mouth was already in action: </p>
<p>	“Run, Jacob!” I screamed, even as his body surged underneath me.</p>
<p>	He jolted forward so fast that I came a millisecond away from losing my grip and pitching headfirst off his back. From behind us came a sound like a boat propellor going faster than metal could stand, thwak-thwak-thwak. </p>
<p>	The wolves’ boat roared behind us, and we were already on the shore, and I half-fell from Jacob’s back as he shook me off like a fly. Incredibly, I landed on my feet. I was at the crest of the shore, standing helpless on the stones. Jake was in front of me, all four feet braced, his huge head lowered. </p>
<p>	Victoria was standing wet and glorious, ankle-deep in the surf. I saw her for only an instant, but it was long enough to see that her hair was not loose and fiery like it was in my imagination, but wet and clinging slickly to her head. Her face, beautiful as it was, was twisted with rage. I saw it for a second, and then she was gone, blurring at us. </p>
<p>	The fight was too fast for my eyes to follow. There were screams of rage from the vampire and a long and hideous snarl from my Jacob, broken by high yips and cries. She lunged forward and Jacob darted to block her; she leapt back from his teeth and jumped sideways; he lunged again and she once more evaded him. </p>
<p>	The boat was halfway to shore and Embry, Jared, and Leah were standing at the bow, poised to leap off the second they hit the shallow water. </p>
<p>	Victoria leapt to the side and almost — almost — made it past Jacob to me, and Jake’s yelp when he stopped her sounded almost unhinged. I stumbled back a step over a thorny branch. </p>
<p>	“Hang on!” bellowed Seth. When I looked again there were three giant wolves racing through the waist-deep water. We had come through in the exact worst place: the angle meant they were slowed by the water for the longest amount of time possible. </p>
<p>	Victoria’s head whipped over her shoulder, then back to me, fixating directly on my face. Her eyes were almost black, her face desperately eager yet agonized; she wanted me so badly, and I was just out of reach. She quivered in indecision, needing to run; the wolves were almost to shore, but unable to rip her eyes from my face. </p>
<p>	I didn’t even remember reaching down for the branch. The next thing I knew, it was in my hand and one of the long, razor-sharp thorns was sinking into the skin of my forearm. </p>
<p>	She had half-turned to flee and froze mid-movement. Her eyes widened, bottomless black pools of thirst, and her nostrils flared at the smell of my blood. </p>
<p>	The infinitesimal pause was what cost her her life. Jake was already in motion; he seized onto her neck where it joined the shoulder and whipped her off her feet, battering her up and down against the ground like a bear with a seal. The stones of the beach shattered into shards, flying in all directions.</p>
<p>	The other wolves collided with them and then I was simply aware of a seemingly neverending sound like tearing metal. I blinked and found that I was sitting on my butt on the stones, holding my arm. It was stinging, but there was just a little trickle of blood. </p>
<p>	Jake was nosing me, sniffing at my arm, and nudging me, and a column of perfumed smoke was rising into the air. Seth was flinging wood onto the fire, and Sam and Paul were there too now, winding around in the background.</p>
<p>	Jake was whining and poking me repeatedly, and I found the words to say “I’m okay, I’m okay,” numbly. It had all happened so fast and it had temporally warped in my memories: Victoria had been alive for long minutes in my mind, and the time that had elapsed since her fatal mistake could only have been seconds.</p>
<p>	Jake whined again. </p>
<p>	“I’m okay,” I repeated. The sun was setting. Shining orange light shattered into golden flakes on the surface of the sound, fractals of color <br/>like Victoria’s hair, moving and dancing as though she was still alive. But all earthly traces that remained of her were going up in smoke before my eyes.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Regression</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>In the aftermath of Victoria's defeat, Bella tries to cling to any connection to the world of vampires.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>In the days that followed the death of Victoria, I felt as though I was separated from the world by a thin membrane. Like a baby chick inside an egg. A fine skin between me and the air and the light and the sun. </p><p>	“What happened?” Charlie had said, leaping up from the couch when Jacob and I had come home on Sunday night. </p><p>	I felt shell-shocked. I barely heard Jake as he muttered, “I think something reminded her of… of…”</p><p>	Of Edward. When I thought it, my whole body ached, not just my chest. I turned away from the look on Charlie’s face, the look that was concern and fear and anger, all at once. </p><p> </p><p>	Around me, life softened back to normal. The Quileute pack went back to school, making their excuses to skeptical teachers that wondered what they had been up to even with the assurances of the tribal council. I no longer checked three times before going to bed that my window was bolted — a useless exercise anyway, since no window was going to stop a vampire. The rings under Jacob’s eyes disappeared and he seemed to age in reverse, his face becoming more like the carefree one I had first known. </p><p>	He was still with me every spare moment. We sat side by side doing our homework; we lay on the couch and read or watched TV. At first he asked me if I wanted to talk about it, then he didn’t anymore, just held my hand and sat with me, in companionable silence. Charlie was afraid, I could tell, but he seemed comforted by Jake’s presence. </p><p>	When I thought about it, I didn’t even know what had changed. It seemed so useless. Nothing was different, I screamed at myself. Where was that free-floating giddiness that I had been living in for the last month, even as the stress and terror that Victoria had inflicted battered at my walls? Why couldn’t I muster the ability to kiss him, or touch him with feeling, when truly nothing had changed?</p><p> </p><p>	“Bella,” said Jacob softly.</p><p>	I looked at him. We were sitting in his Rabbit outside Forks High School; he had just picked me up. I had stayed late to get an assignment from a teacher, so the parking lot was almost empty. </p><p>	“I need you to talk to me,” Jake said. He said it gently, but firmly. </p><p>	“I don’t know what there is to say,” I said. It was honest, but I knew what he was asking.</p><p>	“That’s okay,” he said. “How do you feel?”</p><p>	“Empty,” I whispered. “Stripped out. Hollow.”</p><p>	He nodded, almost to himself. A few raindrops plunked onto the windshield. </p><p>	“You started feeling like that right after the island,” he said. “Was it watching me kill her?”</p><p>	He said it so baldly that I winced. </p><p>	“It’s easy for me to be desensitized,” he said quietly, looking down at his huge hands in his lap. “I don’t think of them the same way that you do, Bells — it’s a genetic instinct. I’m supposed to be against them, I’m their natural predator… But I know that doesn’t matter. I understand that she was a person.”</p><p>	“That’s not it. It was scary,” I admitted. “But I was so afraid of her. I knew she would have killed me if you hadn’t stopped her, and I can finally breathe now. Around Charlie. I’m glad you — the pack — got her.”</p><p>	My eyes burned with tears. Everything I had just said was absolutely true, but I felt terribly sad. Yes, watching the wolves swarm Victoria, hearing the ripping sound as they tore her apart, the way the flames danced hungrily up — it was terrifying, the stuff of nightmares, but it wasn’t as scary as James had been. </p><p>	“The first few weeks were incredible,” Jacob said softly. “I know you felt it, too. It feels so right to be together. It might have felt like that was just how life would be, from then on. But you’re recovering from something major, Bells. It leaves a mark. It hasn’t even been that long of a time since you and I started riding bikes together. There’ll be ups and downs. It’ll be all right.”</p><p>	I let out a sob and he bundled his arms around me, snuggling me close and kissing the side of my forehead. </p><p>	“Tell me about it,” he said quietly.</p><p>	I wiped my nose on my sleeve. “When something… when I’m in danger, I hear something. A voice. His voice.”</p><p>	“Okay,” he said, sounding not at all thrown by this development, and I remembered that he was unusually accustomed to having voices in his head. </p><p>	“It hurts,” I said. “It reminds me of him, and when I’m… having a hard time, I seek it out. I do something dangerous.”</p><p>	“That’s why you went to the cliffs when Harry died,” Jacob said, surprising me so much with his perception that I pulled away and nearly bonked my head on his chin.</p><p>	“I heard it when Victoria came too,” I said. “He told me to run. I haven’t heard him in a long time. I’m not sure why I feel like this.”</p><p>	Jake sat totally still, his brow wrinkled. “Can I think about it?” he asked after a couple of minutes.</p><p>	“Yeah. Of course,” I answered, nonplussed.</p><p>	He started the car and pulled out of the lot, driving more slowly than usual. I put my head against the window and gazed into the misty forest, thinking. My limbs felt strangely light. I hadn’t realized that the secret of the voice had been weighing me down, and how I had felt guilty for hiding it from Jacob. I had been convinced that he would be more upset than he was. </p><p>	I know what I signed up for, said his voice from my memories, from one of our earlier conversations. I had heard him but hadn’t really believed him.</p><p>	I had barely been paying attention to the roadside, but we were turning down a backroad in La Push. </p><p>	“Where are we?” I asked when Jacob parked by a narrow trail.</p><p>	“Little Beach,” he said, taking my hand and leading me down the trail.</p><p>	It wound through the trees for less than five hundred feet before we emerged on a small cove. The ocean was cloaked in mist and the stones were wet and multicolored underfoot. There was a small driftwood log to sit down on, and we did. He wrapped his arm around my shoulders gently.</p><p>	“Tell me if this seems wrong,” he said. “You weren’t thinking about him for a while. You were focused on me and Victoria, and hearing his voice sort of snapped you out of that.”</p><p>	I nodded mutely. It was more than that, though: there was part of me that was mourning Victoria’s death as the event that signified that the vampires had departed my life permanently. Tenuous as it was, the redheaded vampire had been a link to the past and to the Cullens. How supremely screwed-up that I was grieving even that as a loss. </p><p>	“It’ll be weird,” he said softly. He brushed back a strand of my hair from my face. “It’ll take a long time, and it won’t be easy. But it’ll be okay. The thing is, though, Bella, that you have to let it go… and you can let it go.”</p><p>	Very gently, he leaned forward and touched his lips to mine. Then he sat back and I snuggled into his side, feeling scattered in all directions, but comforted, and present.</p><p> </p><p>	That Friday I sat in my truck in the school parking lot, staring out the window and thinking. Jacob was busy until dinner tonight; there was nothing to do until I went over there later. I could go home and start on homework, but it was Friday, dammit, and that seemed stupid.</p><p>	I eased out of the parking lot and drove up towards the highway. I was halfway there before I remembered that it probably wasn’t such a good idea to take the truck so far from home, but I had already come this far, and I continued.</p><p>	The beach was empty. There were no other cars at the parking lot. I descended the hill slowly, my steps dragging. The island was empty as well, with the narrow shore Jake and I had slept on flat and blending into the water. The tide was rising. </p><p>	I picked my way down until I found the spot where Jacob had seized Victoria. The Quileutes had tried to scatter the shattered stones, but there was no way of fully disguising the small crater of rock smashed to shards of gravel. Just eight feet away was a firepit clogged with soaked lavender ashes. </p><p>	I sank down onto the ground, watching where I sat to avoid getting stabbed by a splinter of stone, and unconsciously ran my fingers over the skin of my forearm, where the scar from James’ teeth had been joined by a narrow, tear-drop shaped mark from the thorns. At least Laurent hadn’t gotten close enough to hurt me. </p><p>	If I was being honest with myself, I wasn’t only sad about giving up the last vestiges of my time with the vampires. I felt my chest ache, but I did my best to shove it aside. Trying to think clearly, like an outside perspective.</p><p>	I felt almost betrayed by my response to Jacob, by how wholly and completely I had embraced being with him. I tried to think back to the day on the cliffs. I had thought of Jacob as the runner up, the second choice now that my first was off the table. I was convinced that I would still be pining after Edward, that Edward would last forever in my mind. </p><p>	The love I had felt — the obsessive, all-consuming irrevocable love that had developed in my heart when I met Edward Cullen. Had it been shallow? Impermanent? Perhaps just a teenage obsession? Was my love for Jacob evidence that I hadn’t loved Edward as much as I thought I had?</p><p>	Or maybe, said a quiet voice in the back of my head, you did love Edward that much. And it meant exactly as much as you believed it did, but then he did something shattering, that meant you couldn’t be together. And now you’re in the process of healing from that, and part of that process is finding other people to love. </p><p>	Somewhere in my heart I had clung to my pain. I had thought that getting over it would cheapen my love for Edward somehow. That the only way to prove to myself, to him, to the world that I had loved him as deeply as I did was to never be truly happy again. To lock myself away and lick my wounds forever, to prove their depth. To hold him up as the pinnacle of existence in my mind.</p><p>	He chose to leave you, the voice said in the back of my mind. You miss that relationship the way that it was when you were happy, but the ending was part of it too. You told him that you didn’t want him to leave. You told him that you were willing to take whichever risk necessary, because he was important to you, and he made the decision for you and left. </p><p>	I realized that tears were pouring down my cheeks. It hurt agonizingly as I forced myself to think through those words again: You believed that Edward Cullen was going to be your life forever. He may have believed that too, but then he chose to change the terms. He left voluntarily. He removed himself from the equation. You cannot make someone the center of your life when they don’t choose to be.</p><p>	Edward did not choose me. I felt my mouth open involuntarily and some miserable, tortured sound come out. I had known him well enough to know that he had left because he thought it was the right thing to do for me, and now I had to face the truth that his decision confirmed our incompatibility. He trusted his perception of what was right for me more than he trusted mine. It had to be over. </p><p>	I had loved him more than life. </p><p>I know, and that’s okay, said the voice.</p><p>	Now he was gone forever. </p><p>	We knew that, said the voice.</p><p>	I have to let go of him if I’m going to be happy.</p><p>	You do, said the voice sympathetically.</p><p>	I stood up. My legs felt stiff; how long had I been sitting there? </p><p>	“I’m finished, Edward,” I said out loud to the breeze, to the shattered rocks, to Victoria’s ashes. “I’m laying you to rest. I’ll miss you, but… I have a life to live.”</p><p>My voice broke on rest, and it wobbled through the end, but that was all right. That was to be expected.</p><p>	Then the soft velvet voice spoke to me: the voice of my past, the voice of my dream, the voice of another life in a parallel universe. I clutched at the beauty of it, and I felt the terrible pain it inflicted on me, and I savored the agony, knowing that it was the very last time I would ever hear it.</p><p>“Be happy,” Edward whispered. </p><p>I swiped my sleeve across my eyes and let out a last sob. Then I walked back up the hill, out of the world of vampires, and back into the forest, leaving behind part of my heart with the first great love of my life, and bringing all I had left home to the second.</p>
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<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Graduation</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>The relationship between Bella and Jacob continues to grow and develop as Bella learns of new happiness.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>CW: sex scene.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The morning after my last visit to the beach where Victoria died, I woke up to find that the wound in my chest had closed. It was there when I seriously thought about it, but otherwise it pained me only when someone mentioned the Cullens: an old, vague ache like arthritis.</p>
<p>	We didn’t return immediately to the sheer giddiness of the first few weeks. In a strange way, it seemed as though our relationship had splintered off into a new timeline, or had started all over again. When I went to his house the day after Victoria’s beach, it felt like the day I had brought him the bikes, or the day that he and Billy had dropped off my truck. A fresh start. A new beginning. I felt almost shy.</p>
<p>	He held my hand while later the next week we walked down to the long white tree where we always sat to talk, and listened intently as I poured out everything I could think of, all the things I was carrying with me from the last year and everything that still weighed on my mind, my old fears, my new ones, my hopes, my sadness. Then I leaned my head on his chest, feeling his heartbeat against my cheek, as he told me in his deep voice about his perspective of the last five months: the sorrow he had felt for me in the depths of my grief, his frustration and anger when he had found me at the cliffs, unable to believe that I would risk my life even as he struggled to safeguard it, his all-consuming worry as Victoria hunted us and the joy he felt at the same time when we were finally together, and the sense of resolve he had found when I regressed after Victoria died. </p>
<p>	“Like I said earlier,” he murmured into my hair. “It happens, we’ll have ups and downs in our life… some maybe lower than this one. I hope not. We can handle it together. I’m there for you always. Whatever you need me for.”</p>
<p>	“I’m there for you always,” I whispered, my throat thick with tears. “Your joy is my joy… your sadness is my sadness.” The words fell from my mouth naturally, without thought. “I love you.”</p>
<p>	I felt his chest constrict under my cheek and he said it to me in a voice that was teary with happiness: “I love you too, Bella.”</p>
<p>	I reached up to his cheek, caressing his burning skin gently, and lifted myself up to press my lips against his, a warm sweet kiss that sent tingles all over my body and filled me with a comforting warmth, a kiss that made me forget where I was and who I was and everything I had ever known. When I drew back at last and met his brilliant black eyes, alight with a joy and love too boundless to contain, I realized that it was raining, and the drops on the ocean and the stones sounded joyous. It sounded as though all of nature was calling out to us, telling us that it saw our love, and loved it as much as we did.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>	May in Forks was beautiful. </p>
<p>	The great dripping veils of moss that curtained the trees were deepest vivid green, and the young ferns pushing up underfoot captured the dew like tiny diamonds. The cloud cover was soft gray, and the fine rain was more like mist.</p>
<p>“How could I have ever wanted to stay in Phoenix?” I mused aloud as I put in my earrings. They were a graduation gift from Emily and Kim: petrified wood and polished antler. I spent a lot of time with them these days, and Angela had even come down to La Push a few times to hang out.</p>
<p>	“You were just being ridiculous,” said Jacob, sprawled out over my bed.</p>
<p>	I smiled at him in the mirror. “You never know, you could like Phoenix.”</p>
<p>	“Only if you were there,” he said. </p>
<p>	I smoothed down the front of the polyester graduation gown. I had barely thought about graduation all this year; there were too many other things vying for my attention, but now I felt good. Excited. Happy. A little nervous.</p>
<p>	I hadn’t nailed down my college plans yet, but that was okay. I was starting work full time in a week at the Newtons’ store, and Charlie understood that it would take a few months to figure out where life would go from here. I had time, after all: Jake would graduate in two years, and as long as our life plans were in alignment, I was happy. I would spend the summer with Angela and Ben, before they went off to college, and Quil and Embry, Sam and Emily and Jared and Kim. And Jake.</p>
<p>	Jake and I clomped down the stairs to find Charlie waiting in a pressed shirt, looking so pleased and proud that I felt my heart swell. </p>
<p>	“Renee and Phil are meeting us there,” he said gruffly. </p>
<p>	I smiled hugely. Renee’s arrival had been a surprise orchestrated by Charlie and Jacob — she had shown up to dinner a day ago with a million questions for me. Each time I came to some unexpected hurdle, it gave me unexpected happiness to find how easily I passed it: I had expected to dread answering Renee’s more searching questions about my relationships of the past year, but I had simply told her the truth (or most of it). And she had mostly understood.</p>
<p>	  Jake and I climbed into the back of Charlie’s cruiser. Normally this would have embarrassed me, but right now it just made me smile. </p>
<p>	“I have something for you,” Jacob murmured to me softly. “Do you want it now, or after?”</p>
<p>	“Now?” I whispered, loving him even more than I had ever thought possible for saving me from a public gift giving.</p>
<p>	He went into his pocket and leaned over my wrist, his large fingers moving swiftly and deftly before he raised my hand for <br/>me to see. It was a fine silver bracelet. Attached to one of the links was a tiny wooden carving of a wolf. The amount of detail was incredible — it was utterly realistic. It was even carved from a reddish-brown wood that matched the shade of his fur. </p>
<p>	“I love it,” I breathed, stroking the tiny charm. </p>
<p>	“I made it,” he said happily. “Dad taught me how.”</p>
<p>	“Oh, Jake!” I lifted my arm, unable to take my eyes off it. “I love it so much. It looks exactly like you.”</p>
<p>	We both had to smother our laughter so Charlie wouldn’t hear.</p>
<p>	Eric’s valedictorian speech about new beginnings would have probably sounded trite any other time, but I found myself nodding along. It did feel like a new beginning. I felt light. Jacob was sitting behind me in the audience but I wished he could have been with me, starting this chapter together.</p>
<p>	Afterward, we all went to dinner — Charlie, Billy, Renee and Phil. Snuggled in the back of the booth at the Lodge under Jacob’s warm arm, I looked around at the faces of the people I loved and felt a deep down contentment. It was surreal to think that just six months ago I was planning on leaving behind these people forever, perhaps never seeing them again. </p>
<p>	“I love you,” I whispered to Jacob later that night, after Renee and Phil had gone to their hotel. Billy was snoring in his bedroom. We were on the couch, our bodies entwined.</p>
<p>	“I love you,” he murmured huskily, and kissed me.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>	That summer I felt as though the world was opening up to me, but more importantly I was opening up to the world. Jake was working at the mechanics’ in town, getting experience, and I picked him up after work every day. Our fathers didn’t seem at all surprised to see us always together (although now that I was back in the world of the living, Charlie was very pointed about my door being open and Jake being out the door by eleven). </p>
<p>	The Fourth of July fell on a Friday, giving both of us a rare three-day weekend, and we planned an excursion to another island farther to the south. It was closed to most boat traffic, and unreachable swimming, so we would have it to ourselves. We were usually on a pretty tight budget, but we splurged a little shopping for supplies: steaks for dinner one night and new books for the beach. </p>
<p>	Neither of us came out and said it, but there were plenty of reasons besides the gorgeous wilderness to want solitude. We had never been really alone, away from our fathers and listening werewolves. I kept realizing again and again that there was no negotiations with Jacob, no reasons to wait, no struggling over stupid things like safety… We could go at our own pace. I went up to Port Angeles to Planned Parenthood the week before we left. </p>
<p>	Unfortunately, Charlie had similar thoughts.</p>
<p>	“So where are you going camping again?” he asked skeptically on Wednesday night.</p>
<p>	“South a bit,” I said. “Still on the Quileute rez. There’s a really gorgeous beach.”</p>
<p>	He scratched halfheartedly at his already empty plate. “Anyone else going with you?”	</p>
<p>	I wildly contemplated lying, but he would know sooner or later. “Nah. Just me and Jake.”</p>
<p>	There was an unusually loaded moment of silence.</p>
<p>	“I’m eighteen,” I reminded Charlie, feeling my face turn brick red.</p>
<p>	“If you and Jake are getting… serious… I want to know that you’re being… safe?” he said slowly, turning his head completely away from me as to avoid eye contact. </p>
<p>	I jumped up so fast I almost overturned the table. “Yes. Yup. Safe. We’re very safe. We’re highly…. Yes. Safety. Don’t worry Charlie, I’ve got it.”</p>
<p>	“Good,” he said, devoutly grateful, and was in the living room turning on the TV so fast he almost gave himself whiplash.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>	I felt intensely nervous Thursday afternoon. Jake was quiet too as we drove down to the Atearas’. Quil had volunteered a parking spot to leave the Rabbit during the trip, since we would be traveling the very old-fashioned way. </p>
<p>	I felt my face flush dark red as I looked away politely while Jake phased. With the half-formed plans at the back of my mind, you’d think I’d be able to at least catch a glimpse of his bare torso without turning scarlet, but…</p>
<p>	Jake couldn’t run at anything near full speed while I was on his back, but he was still reaching the speeds of a car on the backroads, and we weren’t beholden to the road system. This ride was much easier than the one to the island: I learned to move with his stride, more or less, and leaned low over his neck to avoid the hanging tree branches. By the time we reached the coast, what seemed like a long time later, I had fully shed my apprehension and was enjoying the wind whipping my face. The joy of speed. </p>
<p>	Jake slowed to a walk as we came to the water and stepped in slowly. </p>
<p>	“Cold?” I asked out loud, teasing him. </p>
<p>	He grunted and bounded forward once, kicking up a huge wave that sloshed over my legs. </p>
<p>	“Jake!” I shouted, shivering, and smacked him on the shoulder. He made a chortling noise and set off for the opposite shore, <br/>his movement growing fluid and smooth as he left behind the shallows. </p>
<p>	The island was much smaller than the one we had camped at two months before. The long gravel bar was fine underfoot, perfect for sleeping, and on the opposite side of the island, facing the open ocean, there was a sheltered cove with a few huge trees washed up on shore. </p>
<p>	I started to unpack the supplies we brought, pointedly averting my eyes while Jake phased. We set up the tent between two of the trees and strung a tarp over it for the very inevitable rain. We built a fire a few feet away from it and lay down beside it once it was well established, my head on Jake’s chest, enjoying the warmth. It was mostly cloudy, a few rays of sun striking through the clouds farther away, and it would probably rain later. But for now it was only us, the gravel beach, and the gentle shushing of the waves. From where we were lying, it felt as though we were the only two people in the world.</p>
<p>	I propped myself up on my elbow.</p>
<p>	“So,” I said, and smiled at how ridiculously loaded that single word sounded.</p>
<p>	“So,” Jake repeated, his dimples showing. He pushed a lock of my hair out of my face; was it my imagination, or did his fingers shake slightly?</p>
<p>	“I want…” I said, tripping over my words. The nervousness wasn’t doing much for my normal inability to talk. “I want you.”</p>
<p>	This time there was no mistaking the tremble in his hand as it alighted on the small of my back. He leaned forward, closing the gap between us to millimeters.</p>
<p>	“I want you too,” he whispered. </p>
<p>	My body trembled in sympathy with my every heartbeat. </p>
<p>	“I’m nervous,” I breathed, but my voice was steady.</p>
<p>	“Me t—“</p>
<p>	I kissed him more fiercely than I ever had in my life. His hands were on my back, pressing me against him, and it felt as though the boundaries between us had disappeared, like we were two halves of the same creature. </p>
<p>He pulled back, his hands sliding underneath my shirt, and I pulled it over my head and sat back to let him take his off, and then we were back down on the blanket. The heat of his skin soaked into my body; I would never have known the chill. </p>
<p>His hand paused on my back at the clasp of my bra, asking permission; I unhooked it with one hand and tossed it onto the stones. He ran his long hand up the side of my hip gently, sending shivers over my skin, and over the side of my breast. I made an involuntary sound as he gently brushed my nipple with his fingers. </p>
<p>We pulled apart for a second, both breathing hard. I ran my hand over the smooth russet skin of his chest; his muscles were soft and relaxed in his stomach.</p>
<p>I had to stand up to take off my pants but I accomplished it fairly quickly, yanking at the fabric where it bunched around my ankles. He kicked off his shorts at the same time and looked up at me standing naked.</p>
<p>I had thought he was beautiful since I met him, and since we had been together he was the most beautiful thing in my life. Nothing compared. Stretched out on the blanket, his legs too long to fit on it, he was gorgeous. His eyes burned with desire; his hand reached up to curl gently around my ankle.</p>
<p>I lay down, my head on his shoulder again, and we kissed endlessly, melting into one another. His heart was a fluttering bird under my right hand now. He slid his hand down my stomach, slowly as I kissed him encouragement, and down to my clitoris.</p>
<p>I felt my breath catch. My hand was on his lower stomach, on the inside of his thigh, then stroking his penis, feeling it grow and stiffen in my palm. </p>
<p>“I love you,” he breathed. </p>
<p>“I have condoms,” I whispered, and then laughed quietly at myself. “I love you too.”</p>
<p>“I do too,” he admitted, blushing under his dark skin, and we both laughed. </p>
<p>I sat back on his knees while he put one on. The sun was starting to go down across the water, and it was painting the clouds soft rose and orange. I could see his muscles playing below his skin, and felt a rush of longing over my entire body. </p>
<p>He half-lifted me to settle me on his lap, and I reached down to guide him into my body. </p>
<p>“Okay?” he whispered, watching my face, and then his eyes nearly rolled back into his head when I found the right spot and sank down slowly, feeling my limbs tremble, savoring the unfamiliar sensation. </p>
<p>He wrapped his arms around me, pulling me close against his chest, and I embraced his neck, pressing our cheeks together. It was a sense of connection that overwhelmed anything I thought I had previously experienced. Our every boundary, our every reservation had been shed with our clothing. The tiniest of movements were as earthquakes.</p>
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<a name="section0007"><h2>7. The Waterfall</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Shortly after Bella's high school graduation, she and Jacob begin planning their lives together.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>In the fall, I started classes at the Peninsula College in Port Angeles for a business degree. </p><p>	I managed to work it out so that most of my classes were online, and I only had to drive up once a week. I upped my hours at Newton’s to help pay for school, and I had plenty of time to be with Jake around his school, and to spend with Charlie and my other friends with La Push.</p><p>	During winter break I ran into Jessica Stanley at the store. I almost didn’t recognize her. Her hair was in a messy side braid and she was wearing a lopsided, oversized flannel shirt. </p><p>	“Bella!” she squealed when she saw me.</p><p>	“Hey,” I said cautiously. “How are you?”</p><p>	“Amazing!” she gushed. “My first semester was amazing, how was yours?”</p><p>	“It was really good,” I admitted. “I’m going to Peninsula College, and I’m moving faster than I thought I would.”</p><p>	By the time we were walking out to the car with our grocery bags, she had invited herself to the small get-together Charlie was hosting the next night and planned a shopping trip with me next week. I blinked repeatedly in the car once I was alone, wondering if it had been a very weird dream. </p><p>	But sure enough she was there the next night, pushing through the small crowd in Charlie’s kitchen and living room. Although Charlie didn’t know it, most of the attendees were werewolves, so it was pretty cramped to start with. I had been hiding in the kitchen with Seth, waiting for Jacob to arrive and avoiding Leah’s gaze as she checked the food on the stove. From what I had heard from Jake, Leah was getting a little better, a little less bitter from the occasional glances he got into her thoughts. She still had the capacity to scare me, though. </p><p>	“Bella!” Jessica squealed from across the room. Embry crossed her path and she gave him a very interested look (I died a little inside) and I met her in the kitchen doorway. </p><p>	“Hey!” she bubbled.</p><p>	“Hey,” I said halfheartedly. </p><p>	“This is so —“ Jessica’s hand tightened to a vice grip on my arm. “Oh my god. Who is that?”</p><p>	“What?” I followed her gaze to Seth, still by the stove. Dear god, no. “That’s Seth Clearwater.” Who, based on the way that Charlie and Sue interacted these days, was a hair away from becoming my stepbrother. The prospect of having Jessica as an in-law jolted me out of my shock.</p><p>	“Not date material. He’s… he’s terrible,” I said feebly.</p><p>	“Not him. Her. The girl next to him.”</p><p>	I felt as if I had just been poked hard in the eye. “Uhhhh…. that’s Leah. His older sister.”</p><p>	“Can you introduce us?”	“Do you… Are you…?”</p><p>	Jessica scowled at me. “I’m going to college, Bella; I am learning something.”</p><p>	“But I don’t know if Leah—“</p><p>	“Look at her!”</p><p>	I looked from her to Leah’s back, nonplussed. “All right.”	I approached her tentatively, Jessica still hanging on my arm, thinking that this was going to be the last straw for my very tense relationship with Leah. 	</p><p>	“Hey, Leah,” I said, “this is Jessica Stanley. She’s, uhhh… an old friend of —“</p><p>	“Bella’s from high school,” Jessica said all in a rush. “I don’t think we’ve ever met, though, I —“</p><p>	“I went to high school on the rez,” said Leah. I expected her to get hostile quickly, but she stayed where she was, her cider ladle still suspended dripping in midair, an expression of faint bemusement on her face as Jessica unleashed an absolute torrent of chatter. I heard some anecdote about her dumb high school boyfriend, the time she had food poisoning sophomore year, how she thought the beaches at La Push were so rainy but really all right—</p><p>	I backed away, feeling as though I had just witnessed an alien spaceship emerge from the heavens, and looked around for Jacob just as he entered the room, ducking to get through the doorway and straightening up. </p><p>	“I think I just made a very bad move,” I muttered in his ear. “Look at them.”</p><p>	He glanced over at them, then raised his eyebrows. “First Sam, then her? No accounting for taste, I suppose.”</p><p>	Emily caught my eye and grinned. </p><p>	“My dad and Sue have been spending a lot of time together lately,” I said to Jake. “You might be talking smack about your future sister-in-law.”</p><p>	His eyes sparkled at that. “What are you implying?” he teased, kissing my forehead. </p><p>	“Nothing,” I said hastily. </p><p>	“Nothing ever?” he pressed.</p><p>	“Nothing…” I considered. I had been raised to cringe away from the thought of marriage in horror, but it had stopped seeming so monstrous in the last several months. “Definitely nothing while you’re in high school.”	</p><p>“Very responsible,” said Jake, and I felt his chest shake in silent laughter when he hugged me close against his chest. “Let’s go save Seth from Leah and Jessica.”</p><p> </p><p>	The summer after my first year of college was glorious. Jake worked for the local mechanic again and I split my time between Newton’s and the local Starbucks. In my free time when I wasn’t with Jake I was at Emily’s, helping her prepare for her August wedding with Sam. </p><p>The ceremony was beautiful. Emily’s bridesmaids were her sisters and cousins from the Makah reservation, and Sam’s groomsmen were the senior wolves in the pack. </p><p>	“This is the single tallest wedding that’s ever existed,” Kim whispered to me as we sat down, and I had to muffle my giggles. </p><p>	Emily was gorgeous in her traditional dress, and Sam was handsome too, but I only had eyes for Jacob. I had never seen him wearing formal clothes, and I could barely tear my eyes away from him. Once during the ceremony I saw Kim, gazing at Jared, and her face was a mirror of mine. </p><p>	At the reception — held at their little cottage — I saw Leah standing off to the side. I had grown used to seeing her angry or bitter, and found myself slightly surprised by her expression. She looked more tired than miserable, more patient than angry.</p><p>	“Hi,” I ventured.</p><p>	“Hey, Bella,” she said tonelessly, toying with her glass of wine.</p><p>	“How are you?” I asked, realizing just how loaded a question that was after it had already escaped my lips.</p><p>	She sighed. “I’m not bad, actually.” She glanced at me, a hint of a smile playing around her mouth. “I broke up with Jessica a few months ago.”</p><p>	I let out a sigh of relief. I had figured when Jessica suddenly dropped off the map, but it was nice to have it confirmed.</p><p>	“She was fun,” Leah said. “But she’s not really my type.”</p><p>	“Yeah, I agree,” I said without thinking.</p><p>	Leah gave me a weird half smile. “Can I ask you something?”</p><p>	“Sure,” I said, curious.</p><p>	“Are you happy?”</p><p>	“Yes,” I said truthfully.</p><p>	She turned the glass in her hands. “Even though you settled?”</p><p>	There was a sudden sharp pain in my chest, something I hadn’t felt in a long time. I frowned. “I didn't settle.”</p><p>	Leah didn't look convinced. “So Jacob was your first choice of life partner?”</p><p>		“I don’t think about it that way,” I said.</p><p>	“Yeah, I bet you don’t,” she said under her breath.</p><p>	“I don’t,” I repeated. “I felt that way for a while, and then I realized that I was remembering him like he was before breaking up with me. As if the breakup was an act of nature, when it <br/>wasn’t. The breakup was part of that relationship. I had to treat it like it was all one package. So when I thought about wanting him back, I had to remember that I was hoping to be left again, by someone who left me.”</p><p>	Leah blew out her breath sadly. Her eyes were on Emily and Sam, who were dancing on the tiny floor that had been put up. “That’s a smart way to do it. I’m more over him now.”</p><p>	“Yeah?” I said. </p><p>	“More over him than I was. Hopefully in a couple more years it’ll be better. Being out of state in school helps.”</p><p>	“I’m glad you’re doing better,” I said. </p><p>	“Thanks, Bella,” she said. She set the wineglass down on the railing and walked off into the trees.</p><p> </p><p>	My sophomore year of college passed quickly. Charlie and Sue became more and more obvious: he started spending the night at her place occasionally. Jake and I encouraged them for a chance at an empty house. </p><p>	Jake graduated in May, and this time it was me standing in the crowd with Billy and Charlie and his elder sisters and Paul, all of us cheering our lungs out. The post-graduation cookout on the beach in La Push was enormous.</p><p>	“We’re both college kids now,” I giggled, pushing my drink behind a rock to hide it from Charlie, who was occupied talking with Billy anyway.</p><p>	He lifted me off my feet and kissed me to general cheers.</p><p> </p><p>	Jake would be starting college at the Peninsula with me in the fall, getting a degree in auto mechanics. We had our eyes on a garage on the rez that was definitely dilapidated, but we were pretty sure we could fix it up. And there was a small house on the back lot, similar to Emily’s, that would also need some work but could be ours. </p><p>	To save for it, we would be moving to Port Angeles in September and both working two jobs. I was so excited for the move that it actually surprised me. I’d ended up living with Charlie for four years, and as much as I loved him I was ready to be away from his pointed stares, throat-clearings and loud remarks on the lateness of the hour.</p><p>	A few days before we were set to leave, Jake put down a cardboard box of books and stretched, his joints cracking. “I need a break. Want to go for a walk?”</p><p>	“Sure,” I said, jumping at the chance to get out of the house. “The beach?”</p><p>	“Remember that spot where the river meets the ocean? The little waterfall?”</p><p>	“Perfect.” He smiled.</p><p>	The river wasn’t really a river; it was more technically a large creek. About a hundred yards back from the beach, it tumbled down a set of mossy rocks, the fine spray throwing off rainbows in the threads of sunlight that came through the trees. There was a long, low boulder that served as a good seat. I leaned my head on Jake’s shoulder and sighed. </p><p>	He kissed the top of my head. “Can I ask you something?” he murmured. </p><p>	“Of course, baby.” I glanced up at him, surprised.</p><p>	“I know you grew up feeling opposed to marriage,” he said, “and I know you don’t love being the center of attention. So we’ll do it any way you want to. Just you and me on the beach with… “ he cast around “Charlie reading the vows. Or just a few friends. However you’d like it to happen. But I love you, I want to be with you forever. And I want it to be official.”</p><p>	“Jacob…” I said softly. </p><p>	“However you’d like it to happen,” he reminded me. “I love you. I want to be with you forever. Will you marry me?”</p><p>	His face was sweetly earnest, not pleading, only hopeful, only loving.</p><p>	“Yes,” I whispered, and kissed him. </p><p>	“I love you,” he whispered, breaking the kiss and hugging me hard.</p><p>	“I love you so much,” I said, brushing at my eyes. I was tearing up. Yesterday I would have thought that marriage was absurd: I was only twenty, he was only eighteen… but the way he said it, it was right. We were in it forever.</p><p>	He put his hand in his pocket and drew out a velvet box. “We can always get it resized,” he murmured, “but I think this is right.”</p><p>	The ring was delicate and silver, set with a tiny diamond and twin sapphires. The pattern in the silverwork looked as though it had been woven.</p><p>	I extended my left hand, feeling dreamlike. The ring fit. I touched it gently, awed.</p><p>	“I love it,” I whispered.</p><p>	“I’ll buy you twenty giant diamonds on our fiftieth, when I’ve made my millions,” he said.</p><p>	“No you won’t,” I said, captivated. “I love this one.”</p>
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<a name="section0008"><h2>8. Dearly Beloved</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Bella and Jacob get married, and begin their lives together.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Our wedding was among the happiest days of my life.</p><p>	At first, I wanted it to only be Jacob and I and the minister, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized how much I had enjoyed Sam and Emily’s, so we made it a little larger. Embry and Quil were Jacob’s best men, and Kim and Emily were my bridesmaids. Renee and Phil came, of course, and the Clearwaters and Billy and Charlie, and several more of our friends. But it was small. </p><p>	“Hang on,” said Charlie gruffly that morning. We were at home. Renee was in the next room, putting something away. He was standing by my old bedroom door, his forehead knotted with the effort of holding back unusual emotion. </p><p>	“We need to go soon,” Emily warned. She was my maid of honor, and as such was checking the pins that held my hair. Kim was smudging the slight eyeliner she had applied.</p><p>	“It won’t take long,” said Renee breathlessly, appearing in the doorway. She was carrying a small jewelry box. </p><p>	“It was Grandma Swan’s,” she explained as I opened the box. “We had a jeweler update it a little, and add sapphires. Something blue, you know.”</p><p>	It was an ornate silver hair comb, set with sapphires in a floral pattern. </p><p>	“It matches my ring,” I realized, astonished, holding my hand up to the comb. “It’s so beautiful. Thank you —“ I wrapped my arms around my parents, feeling my chest tighten with surprising emotion. I couldn’t have named it if I tried.</p><p>	“Emily?” I asked, holding it up to her. My hair was mostly down, with two braids holding the front pieces out of my face,  and she slid the comb into the small knot where the braids joined at the back of my head. </p><p>	“Okay, ready to go?” Kim said, zipping up her makeup bag.</p><p>	I looked in the mirror. Emily and I had found my dress in a consignment store in Port Angeles. It was white satin and very minimalist, more of a long slip or a summer dress than a traditional ornate one. I wore plain white ballet flats. In the mirror I looked flushed — half excited, half nervous — and pleased.</p><p>	“Ready to go,” I agreed.</p><p> </p><p>	We were married on the beach, by the water as the sun went down. Somehow, the weather seemed to know that this day was important and refrained from raining. Jake wore his traditional clothes. Everyone else was ordered to come in their best jeans (although Renee cheated, and wore a purple dress). The Quileute boys dragged over a few of the heftier driftwood logs to serve as seating, and built a temporary aisle for Billy’s wheelchair.</p><p>	Old Quil Ateara would be performing the ceremony. I saw him as I was getting out of the car, sitting at the end of the aisle in a camping-style chair, and laughed out loud at the sight. Our guests were already there, sitting in little rows on the logs. </p><p>	“Ready?” Charlie asked, his voice already gruff with emotion. </p><p>	“Ready,” I said, offering my arm. We walked down the beach toward the chair and the watchers. </p><p>	Jacob was already ahead of us, leaning down from his immense height to push Billy in his wheelchair to the front. When he reached the small arch of vines that shadowed Old Quil, he straightened up — with Sam and Paul beaming beside him — and gazed back up the aisle at me.</p><p>	I had been taking in the scene, seeing Angela and Sue and Renee’s faces, but the moment I saw his face I forgot they all existed. His hair was long now, past his collarbones, and it fell straight and inky black on either side of his beautiful face. </p><p>	Charlie had come to a halt before the arch. He squeezed my hand and turned to stump over to his spot between Billy and Sue. </p><p>	Old Quil started speaking, and I felt his words wash over me like a tide of soothing water, as though I had been waiting to hear them all my life.</p><p>	“Dearly beloved, we are gathered here this evening to join this man and this woman, Jacob Daniel Black and Isabella Marie Swan…”</p><p>	“I do,” I said joyously, when Old Quil turned to me.</p><p>	“I do,” said Jake huskily, his eyes on mine, and Old Quil made it only halfway through his blessing to kiss the bride before he had scooped me up to the level of his face, and we were lost in one another.</p><p> </p><p>	We spent our honeymoon on the coast, farther north, in a rickety, spidery little cabin with ugly old quilts on the bed. It rained every single day we were there, and the fog came in so close that we couldn’t even see the ocean. We were deliriously happy.</p><p>	On our third morning, I ran my hand over the smooth skin of Jacob’s chest. We were lying in bed, me propped up on my elbow, him still lying back, his eyes half closed, utterly at peace.</p><p>	“Can we stay here forever?” I wondered aloud.</p><p>	“No work, no school,” Jake agreed. He pulled me down on a level to kiss him. “Only you and I.”</p><p>	I kissed him thoroughly, tilting his head to the side and kissing down the side of his neck.  “I like this just you and me part.”</p><p>	He ran his hand over my back, tracing his fingers over my butt and down to the insides of my thighs, feeling me squirm. “Something the matter, Mrs. Black?”</p><p>	“I wouldn’t say anything’s the matter,” I said, breathless despite my best efforts. </p><p>	“Roll over, then?” he whispered in my ear. “And I’ll see what other benefits this place has to offer.”</p><p> </p><p>	I graduated the next year. It was low-key, mostly virtual, but we still had a few of our local friends over for a small party and went back home to celebrate with our fathers and Jacob’s extended family. Charlie and Billy chose then to present us with a late wedding gift/early graduation gift: a savings account with the makings of a deposit on the property we had our eye on. Renee and Phil had contributed as well. </p><p>	Jake graduated shortly after with his two year degree. He started work at one of the local mechanics, and I managed one of the regional grocery stores. The work was boring, but it didn’t matter. We were just in it to save for our property back home in Forks.</p><p>	We drove home some weekends to check in on our families. Leah had moved to Montana. Sue seemed somewhat sad about it, Charlie somewhat relieved. Seth was at the University of Washington, having too much fun. Embry was in Juneau, Quil at Peninsula College like we had done, staying close to Claire.</p><p>	Mostly, however, we were with each other. We both worked long hours to save, and in our free time we were curled up on our rickety bed in our tiny apartment. I read a lot in my free time, and Jake practiced the carving skills that Billy had taught him. Occasionally, when we really needed to be free, we went to the forest, Jake phased, and we ran together. </p><p>	“Have you thought about how much longer you’re going to keep phasing?” I asked absentmindedly one afternoon as I chopped onions for dinner.</p><p>	“I guess once I look my age, I’ll stop,” he said, glancing up from the bell peppers. “Right? And then hopefully I won’t need to phase again. Maybe ever.”</p><p>	“Think you’re going to miss it?” I asked.</p><p>	“Yeah,” he said thoughtfully. “But it’s not like it’s a perfect deal. I really appreciate the privacy in my own head now that I’ve got it. I’ll miss the speed and the feeling of power and the sense of connection. But I’d rather grow old with you.”</p><p>	“I love you,” I murmured. </p><p>	“I love you too.”</p><p> </p><p>	On our fourth wedding anniversary, after three years of working, we bought the dilapidated little cottage and garage that we had had our eyes on for so long.</p><p>	We had saved enough to keep us going through the summer and so we worked on the place every day with unstoppable enthusiasm. Just about everyone we knew was home, on break from college or, in Emily’s case, from teaching at La Push high school, and we were rarely at work by ourselves. Seth or Sam or Kim were always in the next room, helping to hang a door or paint or fix the kitchen drawers.</p><p>	The cottage was finished much faster than I had expected; it was so small that there wasn’t much to do. I set myself to the task of moving all of our things in and organizing them, while Jake set to work on the garage. He had been accumulating tools over the course of his time as an apprentice, so he already had most of the things that he would need. </p><p>	Black Mechanics officially opened for business a few months before our fifth wedding anniversary. In a strange stroke of luck, the only other mechanic in town closed a month before we opened, giving us a massive influx of desperate customers right off the bat. We were working crazy hours as our only employees, but it looked as though we would be out of the red much faster than anticipated. </p><p> </p><p>	The second big surprise of that year came just days after my twenty-seventh birthday. It was a Saturday afternoon and I was cleaning out our bathroom drawers when I pulled out an almost-full box of tampons, and suddenly wondered when I had last gotten my period. It seemed to have been only a month before, but I had a weird feeling. </p><p>	I had been off birth control for a while, thinking that whatever happened, would happen, but this seemed altogether too momentous. I left the box of tampons right there on the floor and drove into town for a pregnancy test. </p><p>	When I got home Jake was in the living room.</p><p>	“Where were you?” he said, bemused, and I held up the pregnancy test.</p><p>	“What? Are you—“ A huge grin took over his face.</p><p>	“I don’t know yet!” I said breathlessly. “I’m only a few days late, but I just feel like —“ I stared at him, willing him to understand. “I feel like something’s funny.”</p><p>	I put the little stick on the bathroom counter after I’d peed on it and we both stood there, staring at it as though that would make it develop faster. Our bathroom was so small that Jacob took up most of it.</p><p>	“I can’t look!” I said, almost squealing. I had never squealed before in my life. </p><p>	“How long has it been?” he said, hugging me in excitement,</p><p>	“Forty-five seconds? I can’t take it anymore.” I snatched up the stick and squinted at it. It seemed to fade in with absurd slowness, but within a few seconds it was unmistakeable. Two lines. Pregnant.</p>
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<a name="section0009"><h2>9. Shale Cottage</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>I was learning the joy that comes from beautiful things I had never even thought to anticipate, and there was many such things in those next five years. </p><p>	There was Charlie and Sue’s wedding, even smaller than ours at the courthouse. There was Leah returning to the area with her girlfriend and taking a job in the national forest. There was Angela getting married to a nice boy from California. There was the unexpected flourishing of our mechanic shop. There was Seth coming home from college and moving in near us with a few of his friends, so he was always underfoot looking for food. There was Sam and Emily’s son. </p><p>	Most of all, there was our babies, Maisie Katherine and Owen Carson. </p><p>	We found out incredibly early about Maisie. The standard ten weeks of waiting to tell others seemed to creep by. I felt as though I was harboring a delicious secret, as though Jake and I were forming our own tiny wolf pack. </p><p>	She adored her father before she was even born. Jake fell asleep after work with his face against my stomach, and she always quieted at the sound of his voice. Charlie shouted with excitement when I told him, and Renee was overcome. “You’re making me a grandma too early!” she said through her happy tears, and I could only laugh. </p><p> </p><p>	She was nothing like me. From the night we took her home she was loud, outgoing, enthusiastic even as a tiny infant. She loved being passed around and held, and everyone in the community adored her. She sat in her little baby carrier on my chest at work all day, or sometimes on Jake’s if he was working sitting up. I would be working at my desk and listening to him tell her all about the sort of wrench he was looking for, and how he really needed to reorganize. She listened in silent wonder, her little mouth half open, her huge eyes fixed on her dad’s face. She learned to walk early, and then there was nowhere on the floor that was safe. She lay in her little play yard in the corner, chewing on stuffed animals and watching as people came in and out. </p><p>	“She’s the happiest little baby I’ve ever seen,” Seth cooed, snuggling her on the couch. As my sort-of stepbrother he had happily taken the title of uncle. His girlfriend, a Coast Salish girl he had met in college, was sitting on his other side, equally captivated. “She’s so sweet.”</p><p>	Emily was at the kitchen, her second son in a sling and her firstborn on the floor. The scarring on her face had faded more in the past few years, although I didn’t see them anymore when I looked at her face. Jared and Kim had moved north for work, and I worried sometimes about Emily and Sam going as well, but Sam still held a seat on the tribal council. As long as he did, he wouldn’t go. I was thankful. Their elder son Levi was already Maisie’s best friend.</p><p> </p><p>	Owen was in many ways her opposite. He was born when she was almost three, and he was quiet but curious. His favorite place to be was tucked with his head under my chin, fast asleep. Our workload was beginning to taper off as we hired a few more employees, and we started finishing early enough in the day to take our children for a long walk along the beach, Maisie in her carrier on Jake’s chest, Owen zipped under my jacket. </p><p>	They both looked like miniature Jacobs in their hair and skin, but Maisie had inherited her father’s black eyes, and Owen had mine and Charlies, soft chocolate brown. There were other small attributes that I found in their faces: Maisie’s dimples, surely from me, and the little crease that formed between her eyebrows when she seemed concerned. </p><p>	“Want to go outside?” Jacob murmured to me one Thursday night. Both of the babies were asleep. I was standing in the living room, thinking about getting onto the couch with a book.</p><p>	“Sure,” I said, taking his hand. We left the door ajar: one benefit of being married to a werewolf was the lack of need for a baby monitor. If either of them cried, Jake would hear. </p><p>	We wandered down our small trail to the beach. It was late November, normally chilly, but there was no snow on the ground and Jake was warm.  The familiar slow crash of the waves was soothing. I sat down on the pebbles, comfortable with the heat that came off Jacob’s skin, and kissed his neck. </p><p>	“Mmm,” he said. “What are you thinking?”</p><p>	“That I hope Owen stays down.”</p><p>	He chuckled. “Besides that.”</p><p>	I smiled into his shirt. “I love you. I love our babies.”</p><p>	“That’s a very good thing to think,” Jake agreed. “Love them enough for one more?”	</p><p>I struggled to keep my face neutral. “Uhhhh…. I think we have enough on our plates.”</p><p>	He laughed, the deep sound shaking his frame. “It didn’t hurt to try.” He kissed the top of my head. </p><p>“I’d like another in theory,” I offered.</p><p>	“Uh huh,” he teased me. I smiled up at him, feeling utterly content.</p><p>	“So: important questions,” he said. “Next year is our tenth anniversary.”</p><p>	“Yeah?”</p><p>	“So how are we going to celebrate?”</p><p>	“Hmm,” I said. “I bet we could get some free childcare out of Seth and Sue and Charlie… we could go somewhere.”</p><p>	“Like where?”</p><p>	“I don’t know. Somewhere warm, maybe. A change of scenery.”</p><p>	“That sounds amazing,” he agreed. “Europe? South America?”</p><p>	“South America, why not?” I smiled. “We haven’t been on a trip in forever.”</p><p>	My head was against his chest, so I felt it when he suddenly stiffened. “What is it?”</p><p>	He lifted his head and sniffed the air. “Hang on,” he muttered, frowning, and then did it again.</p><p>	“What?” I repeated, and then his face set. </p><p>	“Vampire,” he said, practically spitting the word out.</p><p>	“Are you sure?” I was already grabbing his clothes as he pulled them off. </p><p>	“It’s really faint, faraway,” he said. “But I’m pretty sure I’ve never smelled it before.”</p><p>	The strange, churning knot of emotions in my gut went suddenly ice cold.</p><p>	“A new one?” I whispered.</p><p>	He nodded, and then darted away from me. I saw the moment of his transformation — his body appearing to explode outwards — and then the huge russet wolf whipped around and sank down onto the ground, his tail thrashing with impatience. It seemed to take forever to climb onto his shoulders, nearly dropping his clothes, and I hunched close to his shoulders, the branches whipping at me, as he dashed back up the trail to Shale Cottage. I leapt off the moment he slid to a halt and raced inside. Maisie was fast asleep in her bed, her mouth half open, and Owen was just as conked out.</p><p>	“They’re fine,” I said, running back out the door. “Should I call Sam?”</p><p>	He barked affirmative.</p><p>	“Go ahead,” I said, hating the fact that I couldn’t go with him. </p><p>	He nuzzled the side of my face, turned, and raced into the forest. </p><p>	I dialed Emily with shaky fingers. “Get Sam for me?” I pleaded the moment she picked up. “Jake smelled a vampire.”	She sucked in her breath, shocked. I could already hear her footsteps running down the stairs. “A Cullen?”</p><p>	“No,” I said, holding back a sob. “Someone else.”</p><p>	“I’ll tell him,” she said bleakly. There was a scuffling sound on the other side of the phone and it cut off. </p><p> </p><p>	I sat at the kitchen window and stared into the forest. I had locked and triple-checked every door and window, but I knew better than anyone how useless those measures were. </p><p>	I felt a great upwelling of anger in my chest. I had chosen to leave behind this particular world. I had been hunted by enough vampires in my lifetime. </p><p>	“Leave me alone,” I growled softly to the dark trees. “Leave Jacob alone. Leave my children alone.” Vampires had brought me enough heartbreak and misery for multiple lifetimes, and I had only one. </p><p>	It was past midnight when Jake came trudging out of the woods, transforming midstride back into his human form. I ripped the locks open and ran to hug him.</p><p>	“I think we’re fine,” he said immediately, smoothing my hair down. I had to hold back a sob of relief. “It wasn’t a Cullen — I went by their old house just to check the scents to make sure. The scent just carried down the water. It was one vampire, alone, and they seemed to just be passing through. They came out of the water, followed the river beyond the pass, and kept heading in a straight line toward Canada.”</p><p>	“Whew,” I murmured.</p><p>	“They were in the woods the whole time, and I guess it makes sense that occasionally a loner goes by. If we hadn’t been by the water, I wouldn’t have smelled it at all and we’d have no idea.”</p><p>	I felt my heart start to quiet down. “What does Sam think?”	“Same as me. But we’ll run patrols around, looking for fresh scent trails. Just for safety purposes.”</p><p>	Jake, Sam, and Seth went every day to run the perimeter of the reservation, but they never found any trace of a vampire, so after a few weeks they tapered off as the snow began to fall. There was plenty to do — putting snow tires on the entire town of Forks, for one, and planning the holidays with Charlie, Billy and Sue for another. It was easy to forget about that brief brush with the supernatural. I remembered the way I had felt when I first met Edward: as though I lived in a drab, gray existence and he was the sole source of color and excitement. Not anymore. I loved all parts of my life now: my work, my friends, my husband, my son and daughter, my home. It was strange that when I reflected on it, Edward had been right: being a human was precious. And for me, it was enough.</p>
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<a name="section0010"><h2>10. The Treaty Line</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Twelve years after the Cullens' departure from Forks, Bella and Jacob take their family to Charlie's for the holidays.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The tires crunched on the dry snow as we pulled out of our driveway on Christmas Eve and set off down the winding road toward Charlie’s. The light was cool and soft, turning dimmer and dimmer as dusk approached, and the whirling snowflakes covered the cedars in pillowy white. I glanced over my shoulder at Maisie (playing with one of the straps of her carseat) and Owen (staring out of the window at the flakes building up, entranced). I smiled at the side of Jacob’s face, and without even seeing me, his hand took mine in my lap and squeezed gently. </p><p>We passed the shining white birch beside the road that in my mind always marked the boundary line of the old treaty, and I was so fixated on the watercolor shadows under the trees that I would have missed him entirely had Jacob not made a soft noise, an indrawn breath. I looked over, frowning, as the truck slowed to a crawl, and felt a sudden dull ache across the old scar tissue in my chest. </p><p>	He was standing leaning against the hood of his silver car, the snow gathering unmelting in his hair. His face was obscured by shadows, but I knew immediately who he was. The car was parked in one of the turnoff points, just beyond the treaty line.</p><p>	“Do we stop?” Jacob murmured tensely. The truck slowed; the snow crunched audibly in the quiet. </p><p>	“Yeah,” I decided. “Yeah… we can pull over there.” </p><p> 	He nodded. “What do you think he wants?” The words came through his teeth as he deftly turned the car, backing it up towards the very edge of the pullover so that the headlights aimed toward the stationary figure by the silver Volvo, hiding the children from view. </p><p>	“I don’t know,” I said in complete honesty. “No idea… it’s been twelve years. I don’t know.”</p><p>	He put the car in park. </p><p>	“Baby?” I asked Maisie. </p><p>	“Why’d we stop, Mama?” she said. </p><p>	“We’re going to talk to someone,” I said. “Wave at us if Owen starts crying, all right?” </p><p>	“Okay,” she said, bemused, and I zipped my coat up to my chin as I climbed out of the car. Jacob came around the front to take my hand, and together we walked the ten yards or so to Edward, making tracks in the perfect snow. </p><p>	“Hello,” I said, and he looked up. </p><p>	He had the same face as in my memories; of course he did.  How long had I spent fixated on that face? My mind had not done it justice, and yet the old yearning I had felt was just a distant echo now. The snow in his bronze hair nearly obscured its color. His eyes were lightest gold; I registered that automatically, acutely conscious of my daughter and son just a few paces behind us. </p><p>	“Bella,” he said softly. </p><p>	“What brings you here?” I asked. The look of agony that flashed across his face wasn’t sympathy-inducing, but it was familiar. I knew that feeling well. Jacob squeezed my hand comfortingly, and I squeezed it back, but I didn’t need it: it was all right. The scar in my chest ached faintly, like an old wound in the rain. Normal. Understandable. </p><p>	“I came back for… for you,” he said hoarsely. </p><p>	“Why now?” I repeated. </p><p>	“Alice had a vision,” said Edward slowly. There was such pain in his face. His eyes slid to mine and Jacob’s clasped hands, to the Black Mechanics logo on my jacket, and then to the car behind us. </p><p>	“What did the vision say?” I wanted to ask about Alice, and Esme, and Carlisle, but I held my tongue. </p><p>	“She told me my future was here,” he said. “A month ago… I held off as long as I could, but I’ve missed you more than you can imagine.”</p><p>	“I think I can imagine,” I said coolly, “but there is no future for you here anymore. You’re one of the smartest people I know. You should have known that.”</p><p>	I shivered in the cold and Jacob wrapped his arm around me unconsciously, like we always did when I got chilly, and I stepped closer to his warm body. The answering pang in Edward’s face meant almost nothing to me. I felt only the vague sympathy one feels for an absolute stranger. </p><p>	“You should go,” I said. </p><p>	His face twisted. “I love you so much. I left because I believed it was best for you.”</p><p>	“And I told you that I wanted you to stay,” I said softly. “You didn’t listen to me. I know that you thought you knew better,” I said, as he opened his mouth to speak, “but that was the problem all along. Your moment to listen to what I’m saying has passed. You’re twelve years too late.”</p><p>	His jaw tightened, and I could tell that his eyes were burning with nonexistent tears. “Just tell me —“ </p><p>	“No one can tell you what you need to hear,” I said. “Not me — not Alice — no one except for yourself. Listen to what you’re saying. I am not your happiness and you are not mine; perhaps you once could have been, but that moment has passed. It’s passed, Edward. It’s time for you to move on and find someone of your own. That someone isn’t me anymore.”</p><p>	“There’s no one else for me,” he pleaded. “I can’t have another.” </p><p>	“Once upon a time, I believed I couldn’t find another I loved more than you,” I said softly. “But I did.”</p><p>	I saw the reaction on his face and knew that in that moment, he felt the full scope of what he had done. That in the recesses of his unbeating heart he had always thought that he could come back, and that I would be here waiting for him, frozen in time as though I was a vampire myself. It was so visceral that for a moment I thought that I could see his black coat fluttering in ribbons around the new hole in his chest. </p><p>	“Don’t give up,” I said simply. “It took me five years… it may take you longer.”</p><p>	“Bella…” he begged. </p><p>	“We should go,” I said, and glanced up at Jacob. He smiled at me so lovingly that I felt it, a warm glow all throughout my body. “It’ll be all right, Edward. You’ll make it through to the other side.”</p><p>	He stared at the truck. “What are their names? I always grieved the fact I couldn’t have given you children…”</p><p>	“They’re ours,” I said, “and you have to go.”</p><p>	“Don’t go….”	</p><p>Jacob and I turned, and as we turned I saw a brief flash in front of my eyes, a parallel universe: the Cullen’s old glass-fronted house bedecked in flowers, me approaching Edward under an arch of white roses. A tropical island at dusk, and for a moment  — just for a moment — I thought I saw an impossible bronze-haired child race out of sight. </p><p>	“Edward,” Jacob said, speaking for the first time, and we paused, half turned around. He was smiling, his dark eyes dancing as though he had just discovered some particularly juicy secret. “When you leave — go north. Follow the river beyond the pass.”</p><p>	Edward looked as though he had barely registered the words. He looked nearly catatonic. </p><p>	“Goodbye. I hope you find what you’re looking for,” I said, meaning every word, and then we started to walk back toward the car. The snow had settled on the hood and built up on the windows; I wiped them clear and smiled at Maisie when we got in. Owen was fast asleep, his tiny mouth open. </p><p>	“Everything good?” I asked. </p><p>	“Owen peed,” she said in her pipy little voice. </p><p>	“I think you’re right, kiddo,” Jacob agreed. </p><p>	“We’ll be at your grandpa’s in ten minutes and we’ll change him right away,” I promised, putting on my seatbelt. Edward was still hunched over, sitting on the hood of his Volvo. The snow was already covering our footprints. </p><p>	“Are you okay?” Jacob murmured, covering my knee with his huge hand.</p><p>	“I’m okay,” I replied, meaning it more than I had ever thought possible. “I actually feel sorry for him.”	</p><p>“I’d feel sorry for him, too,” Jacob said, “if I didn’t hate him so much.”  <br/>	“Don’t hate him,” I said automatically. “Let go of it… if I could let go of my sadness, then you can let go of your hate.”</p><p>	He blew out his breath. “I love it when my wife throws my own advice back at me.”</p><p>	I chuckled. “Fun, isn’t it?”</p><p>	He started the engine. I had one last glimpse of the lone figure by his car, and then we were back on the road, winding down between the familiar old trees. I gazed into their shadows, thinking of the light dancing on the snow outside Charlie and Sue’s window, of putting Owen on the floor by the Christmas tree and watching to make sure he didn’t grab at the ornaments. Of Seth and Maisie stealing cookies off the table when we weren’t looking, and of Leah and her fiancée holding hands on Charlie’s old couch. Jacob’s hand enveloped mine again, warm and cozy, and I smiled at his profile, his eyes on the road, and watched as they crinkled back. We turned the corner, leaving the treaty line behind us, and I didn’t look back.</p>
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